


Ice Can Burn

by thirteenthsister



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Jonerys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-17 23:49:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 60,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14841554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirteenthsister/pseuds/thirteenthsister
Summary: Dany and Jon have been growing closer. Now they're headed north, and about to face the true threat. Picks up before the last scene of Season 7, Episode 7.Moved over from FF.net in one fell swoop. Updates incoming!





	1. The Ship

Dany was tired. Exhausted. She was out of tears, too, and dehydrated from the effort. Viserion was gone. How many children would she have to lose to gain a throne that was hers by rights? She wondered whether he'd suffered long. The wound had bled viciously, maybe it had been enough to kill him swiftly, so he'd breathed his last breath before he'd hit the water. She had to hope the gods had done that much for her when they'd denied her so much already. She wondered whether he'd joined Rhaego and Drogo in the sky, protecting them for her while she waited to return to them.

Perhaps the old gods would be of more help, she thought. After all, she would be waging a war in their territory. The Seven had never taken root well in the North, she knew, except maybe in White Harbor. Jon seemed to have faith in the old gods, why couldn't she summon it?  _Because they didn't stop those things from killing Viserion_ , a dark part of her mind whispered. She didn't quiet it, knowing it was her true-self wishing she could bring fire and blood to the gods themselves. She'd have to settle for teaching the Night King to know the dragon. He haunted her dreams now, the most she could do was haunt his every moment.

She stared out the window of her cabin, trying not to relive the awful scene. Drogon and Rhaegal swooped and dove over the sea. Did they mourn their brother? She wondered.  _The dragon has three heads, and there were only two now._

There was a sudden knock at the door, three quick, sharp raps. Dany stood slowly, her mourning gown falling around her ankles. Since her house colors were red and black, it looked like mourning was always in effect, but now she could feel it in her bones. The ache of loss. She pulled the door open just a crack and saw the familiar serious eyes that haunted her better dreams. They were wide and searching, and so she pulled the door open all the way, and stepped back, inviting him in without saying a word or breaking her eye contact. His gaze was sad, steely, and somehow made her burn.  _The dragon doesn't burn_ , she thought,  _but he sets me afire_. She wondered what her eyes held. Could he see what she was thinking of him, through her grief?

He stepped across the door frame and stared at her as he shut the door, his gaze intense, not a word on his lips. What had he said in the Dragon Pit? That maybe Mirri Maz Duur had lied, that maybe she could have children yet. Her heart ached. It was what she wanted more than anything, even the throne—she wanted home, family. She'd thought the Iron Throne might give her that. Maybe something else could, too. Someone else.

"My queen," Jon said, though he didn't bow as Varys or Tyrion might. He stood strong and tall, proud. Dany had to catch a breath.

"Lord Snow." Dany's throat felt hoarse, perhaps from the crying. She hadn't even checked to see how she looked. Were there still tears on her cheeks? She was so tired. She wanted to rest, but she couldn't sleep, couldn't see that monster, couldn't let Jon's eyes burn her and make her wake hot and aching. She wanted to call him Jon to his face, just once, to see if it brought him any joy to hear it. He had called her Dany once. She'd told him not to; Viserys had called her that.  _Don't wake the dragon._  But now she wanted to hear him say it again because, through his lips, it sounded like a promise, not a chiding. She wanted to be Dany the woman, not Dany the child, the fumbling little sister who wanted to go home to the red front door and the lemon trees.

"Forgive me, my queen, but I wanted to see that you are well," Jon said. All Dany could see was sadness in his eyes now. She wanted to see him smile, to make him smile, as he had in the Dragon Pit.

"Yes, thank you. I am quite well," she lied, and he knew it. She could see that he knew it.

"Good, that's good." He hesitated, his errand done.  _Don't leave_ , she pleaded in silence. Did her eyes say it?

"Tell me about the North, milord," she said on impulse, gesturing to a chair. When she sat, he sat. "I only know what Ser Jorah has told me, but he left the North long ago."

"The North doesn't change, my queen. The North is… wild," Jon said, leaning his elbows on his knees, his scarred hands clasped in front of him. "Wild and beautiful and terrible and wonderful."

He hesitated, "Quite like you, Your Grace."

Dany cocked an eyebrow at him, but she saw the laughter in his sad eyes. Why was he so sad? "Terrible?"

"Strong. Fury and justice; fire and blood," he said. "But where you are those things, the North is hard, unbreakable, cold and ice. And it's summer snows, and wolf howls, and my home."

"You are very much of the North," she said.

"Thank you, my queen."

She smiled ironically; she hadn't meant it as a full compliment, but she'd known he'd see it that way. The North, his people, were everything to him. "Tell me more."

And he obliged, the smile working its way onto his face from his eyes as he spoke of his siblings, of his direwolf, of the Watch before they'd gone north of the Wall, of Tormund and Mance. She watched his face, watched the sadness come back when he spoke of his first time beyond the Wall. She couldn't fathom why, but she let it pass. When he mentioned a story of finding Arya up a tree, dropping snow down on Jeyne Pool, she stopped him.

"Jeyne?"

"Sansa's childhood companion. She tormented Arya."

"Tormented her?"

"Arya is not a lady, my queen, and a lady was all Jeyne wanted to be. How could she like someone who squandered the title?"

Dany nodded in understanding. "And Sansa let it happen?"

"She helped."

"Tormented her own sister?" Dany could imagine a person like that and suppressed a shudder.  _Don't wake the dragon._

"Harmlessly," Jon explained. "Petty little spats over needlework and clothing. Sansa wanted her life to be like the songs, and Arya was not the adoring little sister who fit that model."

"Sansa's life was not like a song, I hear."

"No, my queen."

"Tyrion mentioned…"

"A forced marriage. Though both have assured me that it was not an unkind one. Unlike…"

"Yes, I've heard the rumors."

"All true, my queen. Theon—"

"Yes." She hesitated. Would Sansa envy her? Hate her? Everything was up in the air, waiting to crash down.  _Viserion_.

"I hope, my queen," Jon said, his face unreadable, his eyes locked on the floor, "that you will feel at home in the North, with my sisters, with my brother, while we wage this war. The lords may be angry with me for bending the knee…but I hope my family at least will understand why I did when they meet you. I hope they… I hope that they will treat you as part of the family."

He turned his icy eyes on her then, and Dany felt the cold burn her as well as any fire might, were she not the Mother of Dragons. It felt like a proposal, those words, but all she could think of was having a family again. Sisters, brothers, children… a husband who loved her for more than her name. Her heart ached and she felt tears rising, so she stood quickly. Jon followed, unflustered as always, as unchangeable as the Wall.

"Thank you, Lord Snow, for the stories," she said, regretting standing. He was so close, so near she could reach out and touch him if she thought it wouldn't open a door she could not close.

"My queen," he said, his voice deep and rich. Goosebumps broke out on Dany's skin. He took a step toward her and took her hand in his. He was much too close now. Dany clung to his hand like a lifeline, following its path to his full lips with her eyes. He kissed her knuckles gently, never tearing his eyes away from hers. Where did he put his strength? Slowly, so slowly, she watched his expression as he lifted his other hand to her cheek and wiped away a single tear with his calloused thumb. Dany leaned into his hand, letting him cradle her, his strength holding up hers. She felt stronger in his hold, like a better person, a better queen.

"Lord Snow," she said, thinking she should dismiss him before it truly went too far.

"Call me Jon," he said. "Please."

And she broke.

"Jon," she breathed out like a sigh. He kissed her then, passionate and searching. Dany opened herself to him, letting his ice burn her. She pulled him to her, clinging to this shred of happiness when the world felt like it was ending, and all was nearly lost. She felt him suck in a deep breath and his arms encircled her, promising protection and warmth and love. Her fingers found the lacing at the front of his jacket and ran over the knot, pulling, tugging. She pushed the sleeves off his shoulders, his undershirt draping over the muscles displayed there. Their lips pulled apart as he tugged it over his head, but then they were back again, while Dany's fingers traced over his scars. He had so many scars.

Jon pulled away again slowly, coming back for gradual kisses before he turned her away from him. Dany saw herself in the mirror then, saw her flushed cheeks and her wild eyes. She almost said stop, until she saw Jon's face in the mirror, felt his fingers unlacing her dress. He was staring at the back of her head like she was precious, fragile, beautiful. Jorah looked at her like that; Drogo had looked at her like that when she'd finished the stallion's heart.  _My sun and stars._  The thought came unbidden, and she caught her own expression out of the corner of her eye. She was looking at Jon like that. She didn't stop herself.

Jon finished with the lacing, looking up at her. He loosened the bodice, and Dany shrugged out of the dress, letting it fall to her feet. Dany watched as he pressed his lips to the crook of her neck, along her shoulders, pushing at the undergown that still hid her form. She let it fall as well and watched his expression as he followed her spine down. There was hunger in his eyes. She broke her eye contact with the mirror and turned to meet his gaze. He held her eyes, resisting the temptation of her body, searching her face for something. She shivered. Jon pulled her into the warmth of his arms and kissed her like he'd break her. He already had, but he was putting her back together, piece by piece.

She took the next step and worked at his other laces, which were strained. She took him in hand and felt his breathing sharpen. He kissed her neck and Dany shuddered. "Jon."

She said it like a mantra, and he kissed her harder before sweeping her up and carrying her to the bed. Dany felt small as he sat and then laid down, cradling her against his chest. He kissed her feverishly, and she responded in kind, holding his waist like he'd disappear. Her body was pressed up against his, and she ground her hips closer. She pulled back for a second to breathe him in before they were drawn back to each other again. Jon flipped her over and hovered above her, his lips barely touching her as he hesitated, then drove into her in one quick movement. He kissed her fiercely, tasting her skin, then froze, pulling back to see her face. Dany stared at him in near awe, searching his gaze, her breaths ragged. His eyes scorched her skin as they took her in, his hand cradled her face, and he took a few deep, shuddering breaths. His lips met hers again as he dove back toward her. He was holding her body against his, and when he pulled away, his intense eyes stared into hers, spreading warmth through her body in a new way. Not fire, not ice, but something more. He caught her lips, again and again, kissing them like a starved man. Dany held him tight, worried in a deep corner of her heart that if she let go, she might lose him, lose herself. She could feel herself rising to a mountaintop, and almost plunged over the edge. She held though, not willing to let go. She whispered his name against his lips and felt him pull her closer. She held on a minute longer and then released, panting his name over and over, silently, all of her voice stolen by her breath. She felt him stiffen between her legs at the rush and then the telling pulse, once, twice, three times. He was pressed against her, his nose against her neck, his breath quick, shaking.

She stroked his back, felt the risen skin of his scars, felt his breathing. "Jon?"

"Dany—my queen?"

Dany shook her head against his shoulder. "I want to be Dany."

"Dany?" She nodded and felt him murmur her name again, against her neck, his beard tickling her there. He rolled off her and pulled her into the crook of his arm, and Dany felt safe there. No Night King would get her in his arms, she truly believed that. He pressed his lips against her hair, over and over, as gentle as a breeze. Dany curled into him and wove her fingers through his hair. Jon's chest rose and fell in deep, sleepy breaths. She wanted to tell him what she was feeling, that it was the first time she hadn't wanted to take control. She had wanted to be swept away, held, kissed like that every day. But she didn't know how to start.

"Ghost," he murmured after a time, falling into a dream. Dany envied him for a moment but contented herself with counting each breath. She lost track, fading into loose thoughts.

She only woke once, when Jon turned her in his arms, holding her back against his chest as if they did not have two feet of bed on either side of them to spread out. She couldn't have complained even if she had wanted to because she drifted off again after he kissed her temple and whispered her name. She fell asleep with his name on her lips. There were no dreams to mar the blackness.

Jon woke to the sound of Rhaegal screeching in the distance. It surprised him that he could hear the difference between their calls. He heard Drogon answer and then it did not feel so strange; where Rhaegal screeched, Drogon roared and broke the sky. Dany stirred in the circle of his arms, her children's voices calling to her even in her dreams. Her silver-blonde hair fell across the pillow, the color of moonlight. She looked like a girl when she slept, not the fiery woman who snarled and snapped just like her children. When she was in a temper, he believed she could have birthed them, but not here. Here she looked fragile, pale, worn, and young. He gently smoothed a piece of her hair out of her face, not wanting to disturb her first night's sleep since Viserion.  _My fault_ , he thought,  _all my fault._

She murmured something in her sleep and he held perfectly still so as not to disturb her dreams. He had dreamed he'd been in the Wolf's Wood, hunting on all fours. His little cousins had helped, had taken their fair share, and had brought news on their howls. Ice had fallen from the sky and snows were coming from the place where the sun rose. He'd lost the dream at the taste of warm blood, shifting into wilder ones with dragons and krakens and darkness. He wondered what Dany dreamed.

She reminded him of Ygritte, though this girl in his arms was more than kissed by fire. She was fire, through and through. Strong, brave, passionate, haunting. He watched her for what felt like hours, just breathing in and out, in and out. He could have watched her forever.

It occurred to him that he had very few doubts when he looked at her. Ygritte had made him knotted, pulled him in separate directions that he couldn't reconcile. Dany was the way forward. She was his hope against the Long Night, she was his heart's wish, and she was his duty. The Northern Lords would not like it, but they would get used to it when they saw her fly, when they saw her love for her people, perhaps even when they saw her face for the first time. She looked like a queen; Jon had never been a king.

She was stunning, so much so that the sight of her small breasts and her rosy cheeks aroused feelings he thought he'd never act on again. His vows to the Watch were satisfied, but his unofficial vows to Ygritte had held him. She still held him, but she would have laughed at him.  _You know nothing, Jon Snow._  She would have told him that he couldn't very well love her if she was dead, so he might as well steal another woman. And she would have told him he must truly be strong if he could steal a woman who could burn him alive if she wished it.

Dany's violet eyes fluttered open, the long pale lashes brushing her cheeks. It took her a moment to get her bearings but when she did, she turned in his arms and laid her cheek upon his chest. Jon could feel his heat rising but pushed it down.

"Jon?" She murmured, holding tight to him under the furs.

"I'm here, Dany," he responded without hesitation; her name felt so natural on his lips. He couldn't think of her as anything else, despite her list of titles. He loved the way she said his name, tentative last night, confident now through the drowsiness.

"Is it morning?"

"First light," he said. "You should get more rest."

"What about you?" Her voice was a raspy half-whisper. She was vulnerable now.

"I slept well enough, and have been sleeping well. You have not." He'd seen the circles grow dark beneath her lilac eyes as each day had passed.  _My fault._

"I feel awake, refreshed," she said, though she huddled in closer and resettled her head on his arm, sleep not relinquishing her quite yet. Jon ran his fingers through her loose hair. When had she let it down? He kissed her forehead with the barest of touches, and she dozed again.

His only doubt was what his father would have thought if he knew Jon was in bed with the Mad King's daughter, wanting to give her the children she craved despite the curse that haunted her, wanting to give her the Kingdoms that his father had stolen from hers. All this, with the daughter of the man who murdered his uncle and grandfather for seeking his kidnapped aunt. Aunt Lyanna, stolen by Dany's older brother. He'd torn apart his land for a woman. Jon could empathize with the feeling a little. He'd given up a kingdom for Dany, just as she had given up a dragon, her child. Though Jon had not truly stolen her, as Rhaegar stole Lyanna. It was more that she had captured him, heart and body. He was hers now, he knew that. The past didn't seem to matter here; the past was dead, the future in danger of becoming so. Here, now, he was hers.

When she next woke, she pressed her lips to his collarbone and he shivered with wanting, hard with desire in an instant. She was still half asleep, he was sure, so he did not immediately push her into the pillows and kiss her like he so desperately needed. When she kissed his neck and her nails dug into his skin to hold him tight against her, he could no longer resist. He found her lips and kissed her hard. When she rolled on top of him and took control, he wanted to sweep her up, find a weirwood, and say the words for marriage in front of the old gods, his father's gods.  _I am yours, and you are mine_. He wanted to sit in front of a roaring fire, watch their children play, hear their friends' stories, and pretend the snows outside were just summer storms. He wanted to hold her every night and every morning, even if it meant finding a warm cave, where their children's children might mingle with Grendel's beneath the Wall.

It was no longer dawn when they were finished with each other, at least for the morning. Jon helped lace her into a gown. She looked fierce in black and red. He brushed aside her silver hair and kissed the tender spot below her ear.

"I will send your handmaids," he said, to delay his departure.

"Thank you." She looked like she wanted to say more, but she was speechless again, as she had been when she'd opened the door the night before. There were parting words, and then Jon returned to the main deck. Dany's sailors were hard at work, only a few flinching still when Drogon flew overhead. Jon watched the distant shore pass by. White Harbor would be further north, but he looked for the landmarks regardless. Davos appeared at his side after a time and shared his silence. He was a man of few words when nothing needed to be said. Jon was grateful for his company anyway; outside that cabin, he felt the responsibility, felt the cold winds. What would he return to at Winterfell? What would he bring with him? Would it even matter? Were they too late already?

"You look rested, Your Grace," Tyrion said later in a strategic meeting, trying to needle Dany. Jon almost missed it, but her eyebrows twitched skyward, and he knew she was smiling internally.

"I am," she said, and then proceeded to shift direction on the discussion.

Near dusk, when he was leaning against the bow, she joined him, her hand sitting just next to his on the wooden railing. He wanted to pull her into his embrace, bury his cold nose in her hair, hold her against his chest and never let her go. He managed to stay decorous, though it took all of his effort.

"I used to want to be a sailor," she said, breaking the silence. "I told Viserys once. He told me I was a dragon, not a fish, and twisted my hair until I begged he stop."

Jon searched for the right words. He knew she still harbored some love for her brother, though it was tempered by memories of his later abuses. He also knew she took pride in being a dragon. "He was right; you are not a fish," he said after a long moment. "But perhaps a dragon could learn to sail when this is all over. Davos would be happy to teach you, I think."

He tried to pretend they could rely on their friends to be alive, that they themselves would be alive at the end of winter. She, at least, had to survive. Jon didn't want to think of the other possibility.

"Perhaps," she said, a small smile gracing her lips. He'd only seen her smile five times since they'd met. Each one was precious. "What will you do when this is all over?"

"What you command of me, my queen," Jon said, meaning it since he could not voice the secret hope that she would command his hand.

"Only that? No childhood dreams?"

Jon studied her flat expression. "I had some, Your Grace."

"What were they?"

"To be Lord of Winterfell. To meet my mother. And if I couldn't have those things, I'd hoped my father would give me a keep in the Gift below the Wall to help defend the North." He paused. "I got one of those wishes. I'm sure my mother is lost to me now that my father is dead. He never told me her name, never said it out loud. And, now that the wildlings are south of the Wall, by my own hand, there's not much point to holding the Gift."

"You need a new dream, Jon Snow," she said simply.

"Is it not enough to dream of life?"

"No, I don't think so. Life is intangible. You need something real, something you'll know when you have it."

_You_ , he whispered in his mind. "Perhaps I'll learn to sail, too."

That lit a smile in her eyes. Did she hear the question in the words, the proposal? If she did, she didn't say. But that night she shared more of herself, sacrificing sleep to tell her stories, to hear his. She asked about his scars, talked of Drogo, of Daario. Jon gave her Ygritte, and Dany sat enraptured, staring into his eyes from her languid position, propped up on an elbow in the bed, worry marring her features. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"The gods have not been kind to either of us," he answered, and then pulled her into his arms and made love to her slow and gentle to ease away the memories.  _I am hers, and she is mine._


	2. The White Knife

They landed in White Harbor as a fleet, the Stark banners flying on the forward ship to prevent an attack from ships or Seal Rock. Jon had sent ravens ahead to the lords of his kingdom, but Tyrion wanted no chances taken. Dany appreciated his concern, though he became too insistent about some issues. He kept pushing at the heir-issue, as he called it. Dany couldn't think about it. I might have children yet. She shivered of joy at the thought, though she attributed most of the emotion to the person who shared her bed most nights. If her councilors saw, they did not say, and she would not broach the topic herself until the Great War was won. It would not matter if they were all dead.

Dany eyed the tridents with some interest as they were greeted by a coterie of guardsmen. They did not cower in fear from the dragons swooping overhead, and she admired their courage. Jon and Davos walked ahead of her and Missandei, and she heard Davos speaking in his thick accent to Jon. "Many a good man has died in the Wolf's Den, my lord."

"Aye, Davos, and many bad, too."

"I might have died there, my lord, if I'd dare brave the White Knife."

"I'm glad you didn't dare, my friend," Jon said. Dany could see his eyes scanning the faces in the streets, constantly looking for danger, though a column of tridents and two columns of Unsullied guarded them all. Dany held no illusions; she had not expected to be greeted by cheering crowds, not with her children presenting threats to anyone or anything big enough to interest them. But the silence that fell as their party moved through the crowd spoke volumes. The North was a hard place, its people harder, just as Jon has said.

White Harbor itself was beautiful, and New Castle stared down on the pale stone buildings from behind the Seal Gate. When the war was won, Dany promised herself, she'd come back and see the whole city. She'd tour the kingdoms, meet her people. Maybe then they'd cheer her arrival if they were still alive. She shuddered against a chill.

"Do you think they're happy to see us?" Dany asked Missandei in High Valyrian, feigning nonchalance when her friend gave her a searching look.

"I'm not sure they understand who you are, Your Grace. Perhaps Lord Snow, since his banner is known across the North. They know the dragon banners, too, I'm sure, or at least the older ones might. And everyone surely recognizes your hair. But they may not understand the significance." Missandei's wisdom made the pale, dirty snow piled in corners seem even more grey.

"I wish I could speak to them, as I did in Meereen," Dany confided, looking at the pallid faces as they passed.

"We have time, Your Grace. If not now, within the next few days, while we wait for the horse lords."

"Yes…" Dany hesitated. "Will they hate me? Think I'm a tyrant here to burn them?"

"Only if you act as such, Your Grace."

Dany looked not at the smallfolk, but at the back of Jon's form, wrapped in furs and wool against the firm breeze coming off the water. He didn't feel her eyes—that was a child's tale of love, and Dany was no longer a child. Instead she thought of his grandfather. Her father had his grandfather burned alive for defending his son. She had burned two men alive. She hadn't told him that yet. Was she already mad, just as her father had been? She didn't feel mad, just angry. Angry that she had to fight for her throne, fight for her kingdoms, fight for her people's love. And fight the darkness, too. Jon calmed that flame inside her that called for blood. He'd told her about wrestling with the village boys from Winter Town when he was small. She wanted to know the smallfolk that way, know their wants and fears. She hadn't truly known that in Meereen. She wanted to know it here.

"Wait," she called on impulse in Valyrian to the Unsullied guardsmen. Grey Worm called a halt and turned to see her, his face hidden beneath the masks they wore. "I would like to speak to them."

Jon turned to look at her, and Dany brought her eyes to meet his. His only showed curiosity, none of the heavy devotion that lay there every night and every morning. He only spoke Common, so she repeated her words for him. "I would like to speak to them. They're my people."

He nodded slowly, thoughtful, then looked out over the hushed crowd. It was an eerie silence, but it didn't seem to hold any malice.

"Your Grace," Tyrion said, going to argue.

"I will speak to them. Others may go on ahead if they like. I need to be with my people." While there's still time, she added to herself.

"Your Grace," a guardsman said, the Captain of the trident-bearers. Dany turned, but he was looking at Jon. "It's not safe. They may get violent. We had a minor bread riot just last week."

"They are people," Dany responded. "They will only get violent with reason. I do not expect to give them a reason. Only words and my ear."

"Lord Manderly is expecting us," the captain said, still looking to Jon. That would have infuriated her, but he did not know the way of things yet. And Jon had a natural leadership; people were drawn to him.

"Send word we are delayed," he replied, eyes only for Dany. She wanted him to take her in his arms and kiss her. Not hard and teasing like Daario, not possessive like Drogo. She wanted him to kiss her like she was precious, in front of all of her people, his people. Their people. Jon voiced her thoughts with his next breath. "Our people need us. The Unsullied will protect Daenerys if you feel you are not up to the task. Anyone else may follow you."

Their entire group hesitated, but none of them moved to leave. Dany knew they saw the dangers in staying, but they also saw the wisdom. Dany looked to Missandei again, and her friend shared that secret smile of approval. She didn't need the approval, but to know someone so kind gave it helped bolster her. Missandei knew it—the people who love you will fight harder for it. Dany turned to face the blank faces to the left of their party, and stepped toward the edge of the guard-enforced bubble. A small group of the smallfolk made sore attempts at bowing, but Dany ignored them, spying a little girl clutching a straw doll to her chest.

"Hello," she said, crouching in front of the child.

"Hullo," the girl said, shy beneath a shock of red hair.

"What's your name?"

"Alys. Who're ya?

Dany smiled at the child, though the knuckles of the woman clutching the girl's shoulder turned white at the girl's casual manner. "My name is Daenerys Stormborn."

"Tha's a good name. Who's he?"

Dany looked behind her. Jon hovered there, a smile in his eyes though his brows were creased, and his hand was gripping the pommel of Longclaw. "Jon Snow."

"I've gotta brother named Jon," Alys said, opening up to the attention. "Do you got brothers?"

"I did," Dany said, gently. "They died."

"Wha'happened?"

"One was killed in a big battle in the South. A long time ago. The other died in the far east of Essos." That was as simple as it got; you couldn't tell a girl that a Dothraki man had crowned her brother with molten gold.

"My pa went south. He ain't come back."

"You must miss him."

The little girl nodded. "He use ta take me ta see the ships."

After she said goodbye to Alys, Dany moved up the hill at a sluggish pace, stopping to talk to individuals every few feet. She did not tell them about the coming doom or mention the war to come afterward if they survived, she only asked about their lives. They were hungry, missing loved ones, worried about winter, the Dothraki, the Unsullied, the dragons. She did her best to reassure them all, especially the young ones, the children. She ached for the children.

Jon moved with her, an ever-present splotch of black clothing out of the corner of her eye, just beyond her left shoulder. Growing up at Winterfell, he'd told her, he'd known the faces of the smallfolk, known how to talk to them, to laugh with them, to feel for them. Dany wanted to feel that, to know that, especially here in his North. She never truly had understood her people in Meereen, though she had tried. She'd been a foreign queen there, though the same could be said here. She had no home here in the North, though she ached for it as much as she ached when Jon offered an arm to help her up stairs or his eyes lit in a smile at something said in the crowd.

They reached the top of the hill eventually, and Dany turned to look down on the Harbor from the shadow of the walls. The crowd was no longer silent, their voices rumbling through the streets as they watched her, and she saw some souls waving and calling to her. She waved back, and a cheer went up, one that didn't call her Mother or shirk from Drogon's blast of voice overhead. One that said they knew her, she knew them, she was just a woman who wanted to bring them peace if she could. Jon's hand rested gently on the small of her back as he stepped forward to her side, and the cheer deepened to something else, something she couldn't place. She turned her gaze up to him, and he wasn't looking at them, he was looking down at her, his eyes filled with raw passion, raw pleasure at the sight of her face.

"Come, my queen," he said in a quiet voice that said he wished he could kiss her here, in front of his people, in front of all those people. She'd follow him anywhere, though she knew she'd have to lead. She wasn't dreading it, just wishing she could be a girl, let him take her places she wouldn't go herself. "Lord Manderly is waiting for us."

Dany turned back to the crowd, pride in their vocal acceptance of her and Jon making her throat tight. She nodded to Jon, and then waved her hand again before she turned to him and took his offered arm to enter the Seal Gate. The roar didn't fade much when the gate was shut behind them, but it lessened the pressure of their stares. Jon's gaze didn't tear from her cheek as their friends arrayed around them.

"My lord," Brienne said, coming forward. "If you allow us, Podrick and I would like to hurry our way back to Winterfell. Lady Catelyn..."

Jon nodded, and Dany watched him from her spot on his arm. He was a leader, through and through. It made her grateful that he'd bent the knee willingly. Many men might have met their deaths for him. "My sisters require your services, of course, Lady Brienne. Would you mind traveling with a larger party? We should send the dragonglass ahead of us as well. Gendry, I'm sorry my friend, but would you ride ahead with it? We need someone to teach the others how to create the weapons."

"Yes," the burly man said, his ever-present war-hammer slung over his shoulder. He'd bent the knee quick enough, at Jon's urging, after their journey north of the Wall.

"I didn't know my father, Your Grace," he'd said. "He didn't come back for my ma after she had me, and I don't care to make his mistakes again. He was friends with Ned Stark, and that's enough for me to follow Jon. And he follows you. He must have his reasons, and I'm sure I'll figure them out soon enough."

The Hound stepped forward gingerly. Dany hadn't much talked to him, but he seemed to still be finding his place in the world. Jon looked at him. "Leaving with them, Sandor?"

"I don't much care for Lords anymore, Snow. And they've never liked me."

"Very well," Jon said, his face an open book of concern for the man he'd fought next to. "Travel safe." Dany noticed he was the only person who did not call the burned man by his nickname, nor his family name, aside from Brienne. She resolved to amend the name in her thoughts since Jon always had a reason, and the warrior woman did, too.

"Grey Worm, send units with them," Dany said after a beat, using Common for the sake of the nervous captain hovering nearby, "to start coordinating defenses at Winterfell, and to protect the dragonglass."

"Yes, Your Grace," the man said. He signaled to a pair of soldiers and ordered them in Valyrian back to the ships to give a message to one of his commanders to meet the three travelers outside the Northern Gate and to march north with the necessary supplies.

"Your Grace," Tyrion started as people began to break off. "Was it so wise to delay our travels with that display?"

"Yes," she said without hesitation, voice tight. "They are my people, I need to know them." Before it's too late, she added silently.

"Smallfolk don't win wars, Your Grace," he said, the smallest note of condescension in his voice. "In fact, I'd argue that these smallfolk may lose us the war should they all die and rise up again to kill us all."

"The death of my people is not a joke, Lord Tyrion," Dany said. "And I would argue smallfolk win wars when they hide you from the enemy knocking at the gates, as they did for the Usurper. They certainly influence wars when they protect forces such as the Brotherhood Without Banners. They break sieges when they let an enemy soldier in through the sewers as they did for Lord Mormont and Grey Worm. Soldiers win wars, it's true, but they lose wars as well. They could not prevent my brother's death at the Trident, they could not save Jon's brother from massacre. I'd argue in this war, the smallfolk are our only hope. If we beat the Walkers, the people's love of me, of Jon, or their hatred of your sister may give me my kingdoms back. So you will forgive me if I stop to ask them whether they're eating well, or if their children are having nightmares, and to tell them I will not let my own children harm them." Dany had not meant to get so angry with him, but it was done, she had made her point. He could well advise her, but she was his queen, too. She deserved the ability to not have her actions questioned in front of her subjects.

"Well said, Daenerys Stormborn. You're as fiery as one of your dragons," a booming voice called from the steps of the New Castle.

"Lord Manderly," Jon said with an even tone, "may I introduce Daenerys Targaryen, First of Her Name, Rightful Heir of the Seven Kingdoms—"

"I think you mean Four Kingdoms, Your Grace," the man said, tottering on legs the size of twigs in comparison to his body. In some vague way, he reminded Dany of Illyrio, though his manners were worse. A girl hovered in his shadow, eyes sharp and searching beneath garish green hair. Dany bristled at the insult but bit her tongue. The North was hard, he'd said, the North remembers.

"No, Lord Wyman, I meant Seven," Jon said. "She is your queen and mine, by rights."

"Seems to me she lost that right when her father was killed and replaced by the Baratheon man. And I remember electing myself a new king, the King in the North. Did you leave him dead in the South?"

Jon stayed calm outwardly, but Dany felt the tension in his sword arm. It occurred to her that they must look a sight, their arms still interlocked, though there were no more stairs to excuse their behavior as simple courtesy. Jon rarely touched her in public; he was getting bolder. The thought warmed her stomach but she refocused on the man, who's red face was surveying the crowd of Unsullied men next to his guards, the Lannister dwarf wearing the Hand pin, Davos off to one side standing a seaman's pose, Missandei hovering between Grey Worm and Dany like a dog who couldn't choose his master, Varys and Jorah, half hidden at the back of the group, each as uncomfortable as the last in this hard place. Dany raised her chin, and looked down her nose at the overly large man, scrutinizing. He was testing her, she knew, but whether for future wars or as his leader, she could not yet tell.

"I do not seek your approval, Lord Wyman," she said, looking him dead in the eye. "I do not need it. We could move on to Winterfell now if you wish it, but you may want to hear what your former king and lord has done since he left you last. It may interest you."

Wyman opened his mouth to retort, but the girl at his shoulder spoke first. "Welcome to New Castle, Your Grace. My grandfather and I are honored. I should like to hear the stories, and wish to invite you to share guest right with us before you move on in your journey."

"I would gladly share guest right with you…" Dany trailed, amused at the stranger's interruption and waiting for her introduction. A bold child, barely more than fourteen, and composed as well.

"Wylla Manderly, Your Grace," the girl supplied. "My grandfather's heir now that my father has passed. He fought for the Young Wolf. We believe he perished at the Red Wedding; as such, we take guest right very seriously within these walls. As long as you don't mind my grandfather's teasing, you shall not be harmed once we share bread and mead."

"Thank you, Wylla," Jon said. "I believe any further discussion can wait."

"Yes, Your Grace."

"I'm just a lord, Wylla," he said gently, thinking she was mistaken. But Dany saw the hard stubborn look in the girl's eye. It was not a mistake, but a statement, clearer than the arguments Wyman had tried to make. The North came first until Dany proved herself to them. She squared her shoulders at the challenge. She would prove herself. If Jon accepted her, the stubborn Northmen would as well.

Guest right was taken seriously, Dany realized, when Wylla and Wyman offered them bread and mead from the table just within the castle doors, partaking themselves as well. She'd heard of Robb Stark's death, but just when she cared only that he was not warring in her kingdoms anymore. Now she knew his half-brother, knew him better than she knew most men, and wished she'd been able to meet the noble Young Wolf, King in the North. She'd have to settle for his sisters, for his younger brother, for Jon. It wasn't hard to see that they each got their nobility from their shared father, their sense of right and wrong. It was the second time a wolf had gone to war over the loss of family in as many generations. Dany could understand that. She was fighting a war for the entirety of her family, both dragon and horse lord, and even for her smallfolk. Her people, her family. She would fight for them. She would fight for the North, for Jon's North.

"Thank you," Dany said sincerely to Wylla as she took the bread and placed it on her tongue. It was plain, but delicious, and Dany's stomach growled. She'd been hungrier and hungrier with each passing day. She put it down to the stress of war. A terrible time to be eating too much, she thought, when her people starved. The mead followed it down, the acidic flavor burning the back of her throat, but warming her. Tyrion and Varys did not put much stock into the tradition, she saw, though they took the offered food and drink well enough. Two men who didn't trust as they ought, because they had so long not been trusted. Missandei and Grey Worm seemed skeptical as well, but they followed her direction, as the soldiers followed Grey Worm. Davos and Jorah were the only ones who seemed to pay the ritual it's required solemnity. Davos nodded to Lady Wylla and took a deep breath before taking the bread into his mouth and chewing, then swallowed a sip of mead.

"The captain of our guard could show your soldiers where they may retire, Your Grace," Wylla said to Dany. "And anyone else may be shown their rooms by our steward."

Dany nodded to Grey Worm in assent, and he and his men followed the nervous captain back out into the inner bailey. Missandei watched the man go anxiously but straightened her gaze after the doors closed. Dany suppressed a smile; her friend was smitten. "Our friends will stay, I believe," Dany said when the steward shuffled his feet anxiously.

"Very well, Your Grace. We have refreshments in the southern sitting room if you'd wish to relax and tell your stories." Dany nodded to Wylla, thinking she'd make a great diplomat as she grew older, though the green hair might throw off her visitors.

They settled in, and Dany had to resist the lemon cakes and biscuits laid out. Her stomach rumbled quietly as she settled in a prominently placed chair. Missandei brought her a glass of wine, however, and Dany thanked her in a whisper. Jon sat beside her but took nothing. She hardly saw him eat anymore; he seemed to have the opposite problem during stressed times. Wylla abstained as well, though a servant brought many of the refreshments directly to her grandfather's table for him. Dany wished she could take Jon's hand, but knew it would be seen as a weakness to exploit, and more than she wanted to reveal, even to her advisors.

"What stories would you tell us, Snow?" Wyman said, between nibbles of food. He seemed half a fool, but a fool wouldn't have sharp eyes such as he had.

"We have persuaded Cersei Lannister to postpone her war and to march north to defend against the Others."

"How'd you tame the lioness?" Wyman said with some irony. Dany thought that Cersei reminded her more of a snake than a lioness; she'd enjoyed needling her by arriving late to the Dragon Pit.

"I spoke to her, as her brother," Tyrion interjected. "Made her see reason."

"She has no reason," Wyman said between bites of cold chicken.

"No, not often, I will admit that," Tyrion said with a tight smile. "She's tried to kill me twice, you know. Thought she would again when I spoke with her."

"Can you trust a woman who wants your head?"

"We have no choice, Lord Wyman," Jon said quietly. "We've seen the full army of the dead, again. They are marching on the Wall."

"You should have led with that," the large man said, and he set down his food. Wylla was watching Jon closely, and Dany sensed some worry there. A childhood crush, perhaps?

"Tell them, Jon," Davos urged after silence hung like cobwebs in the air. "They must know."

Jon nodded stiffly and tightened his jaw. He glanced at Dany, eyes showing that pain they held always, but more pronounced in this moment. She nodded to him, wishing he'd take her hand for support, though she knew he wouldn't need it. A man who could survive what he had was stronger than her. A man who turned to face an army to get at the creature that shot her child down was a man who knew death, would greet it like an old friend. Dany could not do that just yet. She needed life, needed warmth, needed family.

"We needed a way to persuade Cersei to fight with us, rather than against us. And, truthfully, Davos and I needed to fully convince Daenerys," he said, glancing her way again. She nodded to confirm, she hadn't believed him, not even with the carvings in the mine. If she had, everything might have been different. Viserion. "Lord Tyrion rightfully pointed out that Cersei would not believe our words; she'd need proof. We came up with a plan: a group would go beyond the Wall, attempt to capture a wight alive—well, in their way—and bring it to King's Landing. It had to be alive, you understand, because otherwise, it would just be a corpse, and what would that prove?

"Myself, Jorah, and a group of others went through the Wall at Eastwatch and traveled north. There was a small storm the first day, but we kept on. Someone, I can't remember who, saw the bear first. Dead, but alive, as a wight would be. It attacked, and it took all of us to hold it off. It killed a wildling, and brutally wounded Thoros of Myr—we met him at the Wall, with Beric Dondarrion and Sandor Clegane—"

"What in Seven Hells were they doing at the Wall?"

"Dondarrion and Thoros are both disciples of the Lord of Light, my Lord, and their god sent them north, to save the world. Dondarrion and Thoros saw it in the flames," Jorah explained. "The Hound fell in with them in the aftermath of the wars in the South."

"Who else went with you?" Wyman asked, looking to Jon.

"Tormund Giantsbane and a group of his wildlings, and Gendry, an unacknowledged bastard son of Robert Baratheon. Davos found him in Flea Bottom, got him out before Cersei discovered him. She killed most of his brothers and sisters by Robert."

"There's one in the Vale," Tyrion said suddenly. "If she's still alive, they may have a reunion."

"How would you know that?" Wyman asked, incredulous. Dany was just as surprised, and felt a pang of jealousy that a baseborn boy had more family than she herself did, without even knowing it.

"I met her when Catelyn Stark took me hostage. She's a guide up the mountain to the Eyrie. I believe she's the only known bastard Cersei was not able to reach."

"Do continue, Your Grace," Wylla interrupted. "The bear, it wounded Thoros."

"Yes," Jon said. "We pressed on, though, we had to find the wights, the true wights. Later that evening, only a full day's walk from the wall, we came upon a group, a small group of about eight, with one Walker. We approached and accidentally alerted them to our presence. They attacked, and we squared off, attempting to kill all but one. I fought the Walker, distracting him. He made a mistake, and I destroyed him. All but one wight collapsed. What that says about their methods, I don't know, but it felt like a trap. We captured the wight, and he screeched—loud and long, painful to hear.

"We found out then it was a trap. 100,000 wights heard him scream, and they came running."

"100,000? That cannot be right."

"It is," Dany said quietly. "I saw them, all of them."

"How?"

"The wights came for us, Lord Wyman. We ran, but we are not quicker than dead men; we would have been overwhelmed. We sent Gendry alone, racing away back to the Wall for Daenerys to come with her dragons. It was the only hope," Jorah said, voice tight, not answering the question for the sake of the story. Jon nodded with the words and looked to Dany again. She thought of the terrible moment after Viserion fell, when Jon ran from her toward the Night King, through the monsters. She'd seen him go beneath the water from Drogon's back. She'd thought he was lost to her forever; it ached to even think of it, and she had to break contact and look at her lap. Jon took her hand then, for just a moment, unconcerned about the way it looked. It made a heat begin to build just below her heart, and she looked up again. When he saw her eyes clear and strong, he turned back to his bannerman.

"We made it across a frozen lake, to a small island. The wights could not cross the ice—it wouldn't support their weight. They cannot swim, it seems, so we were somehow safe. Thoros died that night, Lord Wyman. We're not sure what took him, the cold or the loss of blood. We had to burn him, or he'd rise up beside us. The wight we'd captured kept calling to the army. They had us surrounded. In the morning…"

"Clegane threw a rock at a wight, and then another. The second landed on the ice," Jorah said, picking up where Jon fell away. "It triggered a rush of wights. The ice held them now. They came, endlessly, undeterred by us. We held them off as well as we could. They seemed to be focused on retrieving their brother. Either the Walkers or themselves understood the significance of us trapping one. Two of them nearly pulled Tormund beneath the ice, and they managed to kill some of the wildlings. We managed to free Tormund, but it was becoming too much. We were pushed up to the edge of the island on one side, where a cliff had held them off before."

"They were building a ramp out of themselves," Jon said, quietly. "To get to us at the top of the cliff. I held them off for a while, but they kept coming. And then Dany—Daenerys…"

"I found them, Lord Wyman. Five men holding off an army larger than I've ever seen. An army of dead men. I told Drogon, Rhaegal, and Vis—Viserion to set them afire. Even then it was barely enough. I estimate I took out about 5,000, but that is nothing compared to the size of the whole. Drogon managed to land on the island, and then..." Dany had to stop, the emotion rising in her throat. And then Viserion fell from the sky, screaming.

Jorah came to her aid. "We were climbing aboard, all of us, when a Walker—"

"The Night King," Jon corrected. Dany swallowed hard. Yes, it mattered. He was the monster who'd killed her child, no other.

"The Night King threw a spear made of ice, and killed Viserion," Jorah finished. Dany had to close her eyes; she was reliving it. Jon's hand came back and stayed in her grip. His voice broke the tense silence. It sounded pained, and Dany's throat threatened to close with tears.

"I had not yet climbed on Drogon, Lord Wyman. He was vulnerable on the ground, and the Night King was going for a second spear. I ran for him. Drogon took flight—he had to—and barely escaped the second throw. I was fighting my way to the Walkers when I was pulled under the water. I managed to break free, but by that time, Daenerys was gone. The wight army was still above the surface, waiting for me. They charged a second time."

"How did you escape?" Wylla asked, her voice gentle. Dany squeezed Jon's hand this time. He had nearly broken down when he'd first told her what had brought him back to her, to his home.

"My uncle Benjen. He disappeared beyond the Wall a few years ago on a ranging mission. We thought he had died, but he must have survived somehow—I'm not sure how. It doesn't matter. He must have been watching, because he rode in on his horse, fought back a few feet, and threw me on the beast. I was in danger of freezing, from the water. I tried to get him to climb on, but… he gave his life giving me time to get away. I can't explain it, I truly can't, but I made it back to the Wall." Back to me, Dany thought to herself as his thumb brushed the back of her hand, offering a small comfort.

"100,000," Wyman muttered to himself, leaning back in his chair. As the story had progressed, his face had become strained, his body tense. "And they're coming for the Wall."

"For Eastwatch, we believe," Jorah said. "They're startlingly close."

"What are we to do?" Wylla asked for her grandfather. "Are you calling the banners, Jon?"

"No, not just yet," Jon said. "Though it's not just my decision. We need to do our best for the entire Seven Kingdoms, you understand. If we fail, they take everything, everyone. I bent the knee to Daenerys because this is not just our war for the North. It's the war to save our world, everything anyone has. She deserves our loyalty, if not for herself, for what she is doing for her people. She gave up a child already, she is giving up her war to be here with us."

"By that logic, I should bend the knee to Cersei Lannister," Wyman pointed out. "She's coming north as well."

"Daenerys is a strong ruler, my lord," Jon said, though he was staring at Dany herself, and not his bannerman. "She cares for her people, wants what is best for them. She agreed to help our cause before she saw the threat because she wanted to help the North. After she saved us, she agreed to give up the war for her kingdoms to fight the Great War. The only war.

"You don't have to agree with me," he added. "We have called a truce until the war is over, but after we win, I will be her bannerman."

"We will elect a new king. Or perhaps a queen," Wyman said, and Dany stared into his eagle's gaze, defiant. "Your sister has shown her teeth while you have been in the South. She is a strong woman, more wolf than she used to be. Perhaps she would like to lead us."

"Perhaps," Jon said, meaning it. "I would not fight her for it. She is my father's daughter, his trueborn daughter. She has more claim to the title than I."

"Then perhaps we will elect her now," Wyman mused. Dany tensed.

"Or perhaps, Grandfather, I should send you east to join the Company of the Rose," Wylla said suddenly, her eyes locked to Daenerys.

"Wylla—"

"We swore to be Stark men always. They took our ancestors in and gave them food, shelter, this city, when everyone else was against us. You want to break that faith? We've knelt to Targaryen kings before, as Torrhen Stark did. We vowed to follow the Starks, to follow the Kings in the North. You elected Jon Snow, you saw he was fit to rule despite his name. He has made a decision, a wise decision, if our people have anything to say about it. You saw them; they see something in Daenerys, in Jon Snow. If you will not bend the knee, I will. I will follow the King Who Knelt Again, I will follow the Dragon Queen. We have before. It was not she who kidnapped Lyanna Stark, it was not she who burned Rickard, nor strung Brandon by his neck. No, she has been trying to piece the kingdoms back together. She has come North to learn our ways. That was all we wished—a ruler who knew us. So," she concluded, tearing her eyes away from Dany to look at her grandfather, "shall I find you passage to Essos? Or will you bend?"

Wyman watched his granddaughter with a bemused expression, before swinging those hawk eyes on Dany. "I suppose I shall bend. I would have soon, Your Grace, but I was testing you, you see."

"I saw," Dany said, though she had worried for a mere moment. "I also see that your granddaughter will rule her people well when you are gone. I shall be glad to know her."

"Yes, she has learned well. Honor, duty, loyalty," Wyman said, "all traits from her father I fear. I prefer to be cunning and vengeful."

"We shall need both, I think," Tyrion commented. "Perhaps we could make plans for the safety of the city."

"After dinner," Wyman said. "A man needs a full stomach for plans."


	3. The Moat

Jon couldn't watch Dany swoop and dive on Drogon's back any longer, and yet he couldn't tear his eyes away for long. His stomach plummeted watching the dragon fold his wings and fall, only opening them again when it seemed a collision was inevitable. Jon's heart returned its steady beat when she went back to circling above. It made the horses nervous, but it put him at ease to feel the shadows' cool passage across their route. It also calmed him to have a heartbeat in his chest again; no one had ever told him how silent death was. He supposed no one knew, except maybe the ironborn, though they only died for a few moments in service to the Drowned God. He had never asked Theon.

He'd watched Dany fly for three days as they traveled to Moat Cailin, marching the Unsullied to meet the Dothraki. She rode Drogon to prevent him from burning a village in search of a meal, leading him to herds of elk and sheep instead. It made Jon anxious, knowing she needed to range with him, but he'd heard about the Meerenese shepherd. Dany still had nightmares about the child; he'd held her too many times after she woke in terror thinking Drogon had killed another.

They were nearly to the decrepit pinch point of Moat Cailin. His father had never put forth much effort to repair it, but he would have hoped for peace after Robert had his crown. Jon held no such illusions. Even if they survived, a war would have to be fought for the throne eventually. Dany may rule well afterward as well, but the world had changed since Robert's Rebellion. They were not summer children anymore. He resolved to arrange for its repair after the Great War was won. Cersei would not march North again. He'd have to find a bannerman willing to take the holdfast, however, and that was no small task. It had its fair share of ghost stories. Seven more nights and they'd be back at Winterfell. He couldn't seem to call it home in his mind anymore. It didn't have Rickon's laughter in the yard, Bran climbing the walls, Arya running away from her sewing lessons, or the sound of wolf howls. There was only Ghost now, and he was silent.

Grey Worm called a halt at the top of a rise overlooking the King's Road. The man moved his commanders swiftly through the encampment procedure as Tyrion rode up next to Jon, surveying the activities in silence. Dany had recruited some southron men—Westerland and Reach soldiers who knelt after the battle outside King's Landing, who were being forced into Unsullied organization methods with some difficulty. Grey Worm's toughest commanders had taken on the task of training them to be soldiers, not boys in armor.

"I don't know why I agreed to ten days on horseback," the little man said after a moment, shifting in his custom saddle. "Terrible way to travel."

"Perhaps you could request a ride on Drogon to Winterfell. I'm sure Sansa would welcome you warmly," Jon said, and then added with a smirk, "brother."

"Oh, I long to see my dear, sweet wife," Tyrion said, the joke striking his green eyes though his voice remained flat. "But despite my childhood wish to see a dragon, I don't believe I would survive a ride."

"I nearly did not," Jorah added, riding up. "I'll not ride him willingly again, I think."

Davos surveyed the ruin down the road, and then looked to Jon. "Shall we send a greeting party?"

"Soon," Jon agreed, though he felt odd giving orders to older, wiser men, or to Dany's men. "I'll admit, the Dothraki make me nervous. I'd rather not face them without Daenerys."

"Many people share your feelings," Jorah said with a nod, "but they are an interesting people. Daenerys has changed them forever, I think."

"It wouldn't surprise me. She has that effect," Jon said. Ser Jorah also knew the pull of the woman, from what Jon could tell. He looked at Dany like a starving man would a feast he was forbidden to attend. He didn't envy the man's lifetime of hunger and hoped he'd never feel that pain. He didn't think it likely—Dany's eyes spoke what she felt more than her words conveyed, and Jon didn't intend to lose her. The woman who occupied his every waking thought and most of his sleeping ones landed her dragon on the next hilltop. Her horse was tied behind Jon's, a gorgeous silver creature who'd been with Dany since her first marriage. 'My silver,' Dany called her. Jon kicked his own horse into a trot and rode to the queen, who was watching her children circling above.

"They're beautiful," he said when he dismounted next to her.

"You're one of the few to think so," she said, a teasing smile tugging at the corner of her full lips. He wanted to kiss her then, pull her into his arms and kiss away the joke. He resisted.

"Most people only see the fire and claws, I'd think," Jon said. He wished they could get a single private moment away from the thousand eyes of the army. It had been two cold nights without a room to hide away in from the world. Instead of feeling her heartbeat against his, as he wished, he reached out and clumsily tucked a stray curl behind her ear, where it had escaped from one of her many braids. She colored slightly and ducked her gaze. Jon enjoyed making her blush; she rarely showed that emotion, though the rest were written across her face, plain as day.

"I wish…" she started, then shook her head.

"Anything, my queen," Jon said before he could stop himself. Did she know how much he wished to bring her joy, how much he ached to give her everything, just to see that light in her eyes? It frightened him that he felt that way.  _What is honor compared to a woman's love,_  Maester Aemon's voice whispered in the back of his mind. He'd never made it to Dany; she'd lost more family than she'd even known she'd still had.

"I wish I had someone to ride beside me, on Rhaegal," she said, not looking at him. "They won't let many people near them."

"Perhaps one day you will; dragons live a long time." Jon realized what he'd said a moment too late.

"Most dragons," she corrected, not meeting his gaze.

"I'm sorry," Jon said, meaning for the death, not the quick words. She just smiled weakly and brushed his hand with hers.

"The Dothraki were only a mile south. A Westerosi party rides with them," she said after she'd swallowed the emotions.

"Were they bearing the Lannister banners?"

"No."

Jon nodded slowly. "They're most likely a few days behind the Dothraki," he said, more to reassure himself they were coming than to discuss strategy. "We could leave a rear guard to let them through."

"I'll have Grey Worm choose some men," she said, the composure fully back in her shoulders. "Shall we?"

She jumped on her silver like she was born to it, and Jon followed suit. "As you wish, my queen."

"This is not what I would wish," she said. Jon knew she did not mean the horses.

"Nor I."

"Where would we be if the rebellion had not happened?" she asked as they walked the horses back to the growing encampment.

"You would be married to Viserys, I expect," Jon said. "And you would have learned to stitch pretty dresses, how to curtesy like a princess, and you would have your family."

"I would not have my dragons," she added. "Where would you be?"

"I would not have been born. My father met my mother during the war. He brought me to Winterfell after the war was over."

"Perhaps you'll meet her yet," Dany said after a moment's silence. "Someone must know who she is."

"Perhaps," Jon said, though he doubted it. His father had too much honor to speak her name, lest it shame her, though not enough to resist her in the first place.  _The next time we see each other, we'll talk about your mother. I promise._  The words itched the back of his mind. His father had not resisted a woman, but neither had he. Twice now, he'd taken women to bed without marrying them. He'd not father a bastard. But would Dany accept a third marriage? He shook off the line of thought.

They rode in comfortable silence towards the holdfast, and their companions. Soon enough, they could see the Dothraki from atop the crumbling ramparts, and Grey Worm ordered the gates open. Jon noted the Reed's banner flying in the middle of the column, the black lizard-lion on grey-green.

"The Reeds have come as well," he said, and Tyrion turned his gaze to look.

"Why now? They did not follow your brother south."

"No, he would have had them defend the Neck, to prevent your armies from marching north. We need everyone North now… Sansa must have sent a raven to them."

"Crannogmen are not blonde," Tyrion mused after another moment. Dany was down below, greeting her people from horseback, so she did not see, and Jon was glad of it. He did not know how she would have reacted, had she seen.

"No, they are not," Jon said, watching the man that he meant closely. "But Lannisters are."

"He's alone," Tyrion said, staring the man down until it became absolutely apparent who he was. Jaime Lannister shifted uncomfortably on his horse, watching the dragons.

"That does not bode well," Varys interjected in that whispery voice. Jon ignored him. He was a man who lived on lies, though he had made an astute judgment. Jon looked to Tyrion, who nodded once. They were in agreement then. Jon took the stairs down to Dany two at a time. He mounted his horse—Jorah had mentioned that the horselords did not respect a man who walked—and sidled up to her.

"Jaime Lannister rides with the Reeds," he murmured, just loud enough for her circle to hear. She gave him a look out of the corner of her eye, one that said she'd heard him, but no more. She held her chin high as her bloodriders and kos organized their people, and Jon noticed each looked to her as they passed, watching their  _khaleesi_  in interest. He tried counting the bells in some men's hair but lost track easily. The whole party sang a song of victory with every movement.

When Howland Reed's party first entered the gate, Jon sized up the stranger. He'd been a close friend of his father's once, but he had never come to Winterfell after the rebellion. Jon knew crannogmen were small, but this one, in particular, seemed diminutive, especially compared to Ser Jaime riding close behind him. The man stuck out like a sore thumb among to the swamp-lord's bannermen, though he would have been highly recognizable within the Dothraki as well. Jon noted that he saw not one single lion on the man's clothing—a first, he realized, since he'd met the man at Winterfell. In fact, he looked as though he was going to join the Watch, he was wearing so much black.

"Your Grace," Howland Reed said with a twinkle of laughter in the words, bowing low over the horse's neck to Daenerys. "Welcome to Westeros, and the North."

"Lord Reed," Dany said, nodding once in acknowledgment. Jon wondered if the Children of the Forest had resembled this man with laughing emerald eyes.

"My Lord Snow, it is good to see you returned from the South, as I knew you would. Might I introduce my daughter Meera? She has just returned from accompanying young Brandon on his journey."

"My lord, my lady," Jon said stiffly. He looked to the girl, a stick of a child riding at her father's right hand, her curled hair wild in the breeze that caressed them all, and a frog spear and net held at the ready. "Thank you for keeping my brother safe. Was he well, when you saw him last?"

"He was alive, my lord, that was all I could hope for," Meera said, her voice thick with anger and some other emotion. Jon wondered what had caused her to be angry: his question, or Bran.

"It is enough," he said simply, and then turned his eyes on Ser Jaime, who was watching the exchange with feigned boredom.

"We expected a much larger party to accompany you, Ser," Dany said quietly, looking at the blonde man.

"As did I," he responded coolly, his eyes moving quickly between his brother and the queen, calculating.

"Perhaps he could tell you the story over a fire and a warm cup of ale," Howland said, the joke living in his entire being. This was the man who rode at his father's side during the rebellion? Jon had expected someone more substantial, more serious. The green eyes never settled on anyone for too long, and Jon thought the man was clever—he was alert and planning, despite the casual manner. "I think you might like to hear it, Your Grace."

"Very well," Dany said, though she had to squeeze the words through clenched teeth. When she dismissed them, she looked at Jon, her worry hiding in the corners of her eyes, so that her people would not see as they continued to stream through. He tried to reassure her from a distance, but he found it was difficult when his own mind was in a turmoil. Would they be attacked from all sides when the Long Night came? He wanted to reach for his queen, reassure her through touch since his own face was a knot of worry, but it would not do, not when he knew nothing of Dothraki custom, of how her bloodriders would react, now that they were reunited with their khaleesi. Instead, he just stayed, his horse stamping the mud beneath its hooves, as Dany greeted the multitude of horsehair-clad people streaming through the gate.

Jorah, Tyrion, Davos, and Varys rode with them back into camp, the silence hanging over them like a cloud of blackflies, buzzing with tension. Grey Worm organized a rear guard to hold the holdfast and set orders for the men to work in shifts improving the small castle so it was habitable. Jon admired the swift decisiveness of the eunuch, though they had not spoken more than a few words during their acquaintance. He resolved to get to know the man better and to thank him when Missandei showed him his tent. His had been set up less than a stone's throw from Dany's, a surprise considering it had not been set that close yet on their journey. Missandei smiled conspiratorially and said, "Her Grace values your council, Lord Snow."

"Thank you, Missandei," he said, sizing up the woman. "Her Grace values you as well."

"I have been with her since she freed her first slave, my lord." When Jon did not respond, unsure of what to say, she added, "It was me she saved first, my lord."

"She made a wise choice," Jon said.

"She is very often wise. I think you temper her," the woman said, and then left him to his tent. He sat on the sleeping roll, exhaustion creeping up on him, and must have dozed, for it was near dark when a Davos' voice called him out of sleep.

"Lord Snow? Her Grace sends for you. She wants you there to meet with the Reeds and Ser Jaime."

"Give me but a moment, Davos," Jon said groggily, and then reached for the dagger at his hip. Davos was a friend, but his friends had killed him once before. Assured that he was armed, he stood and went to the tent flap. Just Davos, stalwart against the cold, stood sentinel outside the cloth structure. He would have trusted the man with his life—it was most others he did not.

"I'll be happy to have a bed again," Jon said, exhaustion from traveling holding him hostage. Davos raised an eyebrow but said nothing, a smile hiding in the corners of his mouth. Jon couldn't resist either and felt the joke pulling a small smile to the surface. He held in the laughter of disbelief, though, as he could hear the voice from through Dany's tent door. The Unsullied guardsmen opened the flap for the two of them, nodding his greeting. Jon returned the gesture then ducked through into the sweltering heat inside the structure.

"…Saw you last at the Tourney at Harrenhal," Lord Reed was saying, his voice a whispery breath, "just after you took your Kingsguard vows."

"A shame I had to leave so soon after taking them," Ser Jaime said, a slight tinge of bitterness coloring the words, though Jon could tell it was not just that he'd left that made the man speak icily.

"A shame you took them at all," Dany said cooly. Jon wished to take the seat by her hand, to calm that fire that threatened in the face of her father's murderer, but Tyrion occupied it, stoking the flames unknowingly. Did no one else see the flames climbing in her?

"Contrary to popular opinion, Your Grace, I have never broken a vow," the blond man said. Jon noted he'd covered his golden hand since he'd last seen him in the Dragon Pit.

"Really?" she said, the anger palpable. "Aside from the obvious,  _Kingslayer_ , where is the army you vowed to bring North?"

"My sister made that vow. I vowed to come north. Here I am, though she nearly had my head for it."

"Cersei would never—" Tyrion started.

"Would she not? If she thought I was betraying her?" the knight spat and Jon heard the anguish there. Had the man had any honor, Jon would have felt sorry for him. Tyrion fell silent in the face of his brother's rage.

"She's not coming at all?" Jon asked, though he knew, and had half-expected it. Jaime turned to see him where he stood at the entrance, Davos in his shadow.

"She has decided to take her chances with the victor of your Great War."

"It is your war, too, ser," Jon said, and then moved to the brazier further into the room. His legs ached from the riding, and he felt the urge to stand, to feel the ground beneath his feet, though the ground was buried beneath the Dothraki rugs layered over one another, a comfortable yet constricting presence. "It is everyone's war."

"Were we in any other position, I'd send you back to your sister, let her have your head," Dany said, the calm creeping back into her features and her voice. Jon wondered if it were on account of him.

"No death by fire, as you gave Randall Tarly and his son?"

Jon stiffened and watched the color drain from Tyrion's face. Dany was a statue. She did not deny it. He'd known Drogon had been instrumental in the victory outside King's Landing, but she hadn't mentioned the Tarlys. She wouldn't have, he reasoned, as they'd hardly been on speaking terms at that time. He'd not have shared it if their roles had been switched.  _But I'd not have burned them,_  a small voice whispered. He did not silence it. He did not abide burning a man, could not, not after what Melisandre had done in the name of war. Not after Shireen. He'd hardly known the child and yet he knew he'd not wish that fate on anyone, even the man who'd tortured Sam as a boy.

"They knew their fates. They could have bent the knee," Dany said, her voice even, though to Jon's ears, there was a hint of anxiety hidden in the words.

"Tarly was a proud man. He would not have bent. But Dickon, too?" Jaime spat, disgusted.

"He offered his life as well, the idiot," Tyrion said, staring into his goblet with a frown as if there were a bug swimming in the blood red depths.

"He was barely a man," Jaime argued.

"And yet he chose, ser," Dany said. Jaime shook his head and looked to Jon.

"You sided with this woman? With all your honor?"

"I did," Jon said, and though nothing would have changed—he still would have knelt—he wished he'd known, wished she'd told him herself, told him sooner so that he did not have to swallow the lump in his throat to continue. "She is the honorable choice, ser. More than that, she is the right choice."

"Fire and blood is the right choice? Her brother— her father—"

"They are not her," Jon said.

"She has burned men. Your grandfather burned. I was there; do you understand what that means to me? I see her father come again."

"Her father burned men with wildfire as a habit, hunting ghosts of rebellion. Daenerys is at war, and dragonfire will kill a man in moments, where wildfire burns slowly. I'm not saying that I approve of burning a man. I don't, but I approve of the woman. I do not approve of blowing up a sept, nor killing men at dinner." Jon wanted to say that stabbing a madman in the back was something he did not approve of either, but Jaime's words haunted him.  _I have never broken a vow._

"The sept was an accident," the knight said stiffly, though Jon could see he didn't believe it, nor could he deny it.

"Don't fool yourself, brother, you are better than that," Tyrion said with no humor. "If she was willing to take your head, even for a moment, do you think she'd be willing to murder hundreds in one blow? Especially her enemies?"

Jaime did not speak, and Daenerys spoke for him. "At the very least, I have not done that, ser."

Davos interrupted. "I think none of us should be speaking of morals if you'd pardon me, Your Grace. We have all done things we are not proud of, as have our families. Now is the time for allies, not more enemies."

Jon saw the flicker of a smile on Dany's face, but it was replaced by words. "I must know my allies, Ser Davos, especially those who have been traitors to my family before."

Jaime's mouth twisted into a pained sneer as he retorted. "It was your father, or millions of people,  _your grace_ ," the man said with emphasis. "Your father's life, or the lives of the innocents in the capital? Which would you have chosen? If a madman was threatening to set fire to thousands of barrels of wildfire buried beneath the city, telling his pyromancer to 'burn them all,' what would you have done? I took my knights vows and they told me to protect the innocents, the women. But I had to stand by and listen to your mother be raped and beaten by her husband and brother, I had to watch Jon Snow's grandfather thrash in flames, and his uncle strangle himself. I had to listen to the ravings of a man who saw rebellion in the eyes of children every day of my life. And when he wanted to burn down the city, I saved the city. Judge me as you will, but my first vow seemed more important then, as it seems now. I have never broken a vow."

Dany's face paled considerably as she took in this information. The charges laid at her father's door had never been laid out so full and open as the golden man had done for her just then, and Jon saw how much it hurt her. She did not speak, and she didn't have to because Tyrion did for her.

"Why did you never tell anyone? You let them judge you—"

"They judged me before I even explained—starting with Ned Stark," Jaime said with a glance at Jon. Jon knew; his father's friends had told the story often enough, of the impudent young Lannister perched on the throne with the mad king at the base, blood pooled about him, and a satisfied air. Of course he would have been satisfied if he'd done as he'd said. Burn them all. "Forgive me if I did not correct them. We'd won the war, what did it matter then?"

 _True_ , Jon thought.  _What_ did _it matter after that?_  It hadn't. Not until now.


	4. The Night

Dany slipped through the flap at the front of Jon's tent and tried to calm her breathing as she stepped across the simple floor. She felt near tears, but she was stronger than that at least, surely? Jon did not move, though his breathing was not that of a sleeping man. She couldn't blame him; she'd seen his face when the Kingslayer threw the death of the Tarlys at her feet. She should have told him sooner, they'd had so much time, but she hadn't wanted to disappoint him. It had only hurt her to withhold it, she knew that now. Instead of giving explanations, she'd only been able to watch as his face fell. She never wanted to see that face again. She'd made him smile. Would he still now?

She slipped beneath the furs next to him, holding in a breath. Would he turn away?

 _No, of course, he wouldn't,_  she thought with relief when he turned to her and pulled her in to be cradled against his chest. She could feel the warmth of him seeping into her toes, the stirring of her hair where his breath caught it. She buried herself in the circle of his arms, pressed her cold nose to his collarbone. This was what love felt like, she knew. She'd never felt so peaceful as this, and laying in his grasp made the world fade away.

Dreams pulled at the dark corners of her mind and she dozed, though only in that half-world of mingled awareness and oblivion, feeling the movement of Jon's chest and yet feeling apart from it all. She knew he dozed as well because he was mostly still, but his breathing had not calmed enough to signal deep sleep. So when the urge to pull him closer and lay her lips against his neck came, she only acted, her brain too groggy to let her fear of his anger get in the way. It felt like half a dream when his lips found hers, gentle and soft and so innocent, and his arms tightened around her waist and pulled at her like he was trying to determine what was real. She could not even tell that he was real, that she had not dreamed it all, that she would not wake in the morning to find that she was still in Illyrio's manor, awaiting her wedding, her slavery, her escape from Viserys and the snake inside him, that she'd not met Lord Snow, nor heard talk of White Walkers except as myths. And yet it felt too real, too vulnerable as well, here with his hands weaving into her hair, his lips soft and warm.

She did not want to let their created universe—just the two of them beneath the furs, just the sound of their breaths, just the feel of his hands on her body—pass, and so she clung to it and him, not daring to break the moment. It felt like seconds and years had passed before he pulled her on top of him, before his entrance into her body dragged a sigh from her lips, and then another eternity passed in the span of moments before she felt the tightening within herself and her breathing sharpened, until her own tide swept him along like a raging current. She felt like a ghost as she pressed her lips to his collarbone, pulled away, and then curled against his side. He pressed his lips to her hair, and the silence held, but the dream world faded. The emotions roiled within her, threatening to break, and so she spoke to release some of the pressure building below her heart.

"I love you."

She had not meant to say those words, but they hung there and settled over Jon's shoulders like an extra blanket. He said nothing at first, only held still beneath her, the stir of his breath tickling tears she did not remember shedding on her cheeks. The words were true enough, but now that they were out, she knew they would hurt her. Someone or something would take him from her now, the gods would make sure of it, she thought. They had never let her stay happy for long.

"I love you, Dany," he murmured against her hair, and she felt her heart might explode out of her chest with the relief and pain and fear. He loved her, and that mattered. It mattered so much she worried she would fall apart if she lost him. She could not lose more, and he was everything. If she lost him, she would be lost.

"I was angry with you," he said after a long moment, his voice a hoarse whisper. Dany's heart rose into her throat in an instant, but he continued. "And yet I cannot find that anger now."

Dany took a deep breath, prepared herself for the worst, and then asked the question that haunted her every moment. "Am I too like him? My father?"

"I never knew your father."

"I meant… can you only see him in me now? His madness?"

"No. You are not mad, Dany."

It felt like warm water flowing over her to hear him say it, but the doubt lingered. "I fear I will become mad." She paused after that confession and then went on. "If not that, why were you angry?"

"I know that you are a Targaryen and fire is in your blood… but I truly cannot abide burning men." Jon's voice was soft like he feared her reaction.

"Is it any different than putting a man to the sword?" she said it gently, trying to understand, not defending her actions as she might have to anyone else. She wanted to know how his mind worked, how he saw the world so that maybe she could see it too.

"Have you ever burnt?" He knew she had not, she was the Unburnt, but she wasn't meant to answer. He pulled one of his hands away from her skin and held it aloft in the dim moon and torchlight seeping through the tent walls. His palm and fingers were pale with scars that stretched as he flexed the taut skin. She knew of his first wight encounter of course, but she still shuddered. She was not cold, but he pulled the furs closer to her and wrapped her up again. "A sword will kill a man in an instant if swung true. A man who burns… he suffers. It feels as though your body has turned against you, and is trying to melt away into nothing. Dragonfire may act quickly, but I think the Tarlys suffered in those moments before death."

"I do not swing a sword," she said simply, but more pressing questions interrupted that thought. "You do not hate me for burning them?"

"No… I could not hate you. I wish…" he said, his voice trailing.  _Anything,_  Dany thought,  _I'll give you anything._  "I wish you had told me yourself, though. I know when it happened it would not have made sense when we were not true allies, but after," he said. "If only so I could have written to Sam."

"Sam?" Dany asked.

"I've spoken of him before; he's on the Night's Watch, I sent him to become a Maester."

"I remember… But why…"

"Samwell Tarly is his full name," Jon explained. "Randall was his father, Dickon his younger brother."

Dany closed her eyes. If she had known that those men were connected to Jon, that their deaths would have affected him so, would she have slowed?  _No,_  the honest part of her whispered,  _you didn't know you loved him then_. She knew now. She would never lose that knowledge. Would it make her stronger or weak? She feared the answer.

"Sam had no love for his father, but Dickon had been kind to him, and his mother must be grieving, and his sister. I just wish he could have heard it from a friend." Dany could not answer him. She had hurt him so deeply with one decision, she wondered how she would next do it. With her own words? Jon took a deep breath and she held tight to him, and then he surprised her. "I will be your sword if you'll have me. No more burning. Too many good people die by fire. Let them die by the cool touch of steel instead, if they must die."

"Who has burnt, that you knew? Aside from your grandfather." She asked before she could withhold the words.

"I never knew my grandfather. But I knew a little girl. She was burned as a sacrifice to the Red God. She did not deserve that fate; she was too kind for this world. Davos, he nearly killed the woman who did it. I banished her from the North to save her life, but I swore no one else would burn. I'd watched the same woman try to burn Mance Rayder, the King Beyond the Wall. I put an arrow through his heart, risked my own head, just to stop his screaming. I had no real love for Mance, but I couldn't stand by… I couldn't hear him crying out in pain." Jon drew a steadying breath. "And Gendry tells me that the first time Davos saved him, he was bound for the same pyre. Davos put him on a boat and saved his life." He fell silent, and Dany nuzzled into his still chest.

"No more burning," she whispered, then kissed his scar.

"Thank you."

"Will we survive without Cersei's army?" she asked, the words coming out in a frightened child's voice after the silence had stretched to cover them both.

"I don't know," Jon sighed in an honest breath, and Dany held him all the tighter as a shiver crawled up her spine. He pulled her closer as well, trying to protect her from even her fears. She had never wanted protecting, but he made her want to be if only he'd hold her forever.

"If we die, at least we'll die together," he said in a burst of morbid humor.

"If I've come all this way to die in the cold, I'll bring fire and blood to the gods—whichever ones I meet in the end," she said and his lips tugged into one of those precious smiles.

"I'd expect no less, my queen," he said with a hint of teasing. She felt him trace a thumb over her ribs and the wonderful smile faded.

"You've not been eating," he said with thick worry.

"Our people have not been eating either."

"Our people need you healthy," he said, and she knew he was right, but she defended herself nonetheless.

"In truth, I've been wanting to eat more because of the stress. More than I ought, and I've stopped paying attention to how much food passes my lips." When  _had_  she eaten last? That morning? She could not remember.

"Shall I have Missandei count your bites?" he joked, then grew serious. "An extra roll will not break the people, my queen. They're all too used to hunger. We will fix that when the end has gone, but for now…"

"I'll eat," she promised because the words he said made sense. The kiss he pressed to her forehead made it worth it.

"Good."

They settled into silence again, but Dany was no longer drowsy, only preoccupied. All his talk of Sam, of family, circled in her mind, and she thought of his own family, of her lack of one. She desperately wanted one of her own. People she could rely on, people she did not have to mourn because they were by her side.

"Are you—" The question burst from her lips but she slowed herself. "Are you excited to be going home?"

Another moment's silence passed and Dany realized this was one of the pieces of Jon that she loved. He thought through his answers, found reasons for his words. "It's not truly home anymore," he said.

"Where is home then?"

"I'm not sure. But Winterfell only holds memories now. It does not hold me as it once did. The North calls, but not the castle."

"I do not know home either. Just the red door," she whispered. He rubbed a hand up her back to ease that ache. That was one of the things she loved as well, his ability to read her like he would a scroll, to soothe her aches, imagined or real.

"You'll find home again, one day," he promised, but she knew that if she thought about it, she would come to the conclusion that she already had, and it smelled like wolf's fur and firewood and had grey eyes so dark they looked like charcoal.

"And you?"

"I hope to as well," he said faintly. Where? She wondered but did not ask in case it was not with her.

"Jon?" she murmured, still thinking it.

"Dany," he said, and the sound made her stomach flip.

"Will you stay in the North? After."  _So much for not asking,_  she thought, but she could not regret the words.

"I'll go where you need me, my queen. To win the second war. To get you your throne."

Her heart already sinking, she hesitated and then asked, "And after that?"

She felt him look down at her then, and his hand reached for her face, tenderly smoothed away the anxious wrinkles from her forehead, then lifted her chin. His dark grey eyes searched hers and she felt small, young in that gaze. He looked the same in moments like this, when it was just them, alone and safe in their solitude. Dany tried to find the answer to her question in his eyes and watched him take a deep breath.

"Wherever you'll have me," he said slowly. "But I would hope that you'll have me wherever you are. I'll not lose you, Dany, not even to duty."

A spark of something grew within her, filling her with warmth despite the quiet fear that sat on her stomach. Would the gods take him too? He kissed her forehead gently, then pulled away to speak again.

"I knew a man who said that love is the death of duty. He was right; he was always right. In the end, though, his love for you killed him and his duty, too. He never reached you, but he was trying to find you for the love he bore you. I never did understand." He trailed off, and Dany nearly lost him to memories.

"Who was he?" she asked, wondering who he could possibly mean.

"I'd not give you pain," Jon hedged.

"What is one more pain?" she asked, meaning to kid, but it came out too serious, and Jon's jaw clenched in his own show of hurt.

"He was your family. Maester Aemon Targaryen, Aegon V's elder brother. When he heard you were alive and fighting for your birthright… he needed to see you. And I let him go. He caught his death while bound for Old Town."

This pain that tore through her made her stiffen. She hadn't even known she had a relative looking for her, an uncle who loved her for their shared blood. How had she lost so many family members? How had she survived when none else had? She forced her words out, slow and deliberate, trying to hold the grief at bay. "What made you think of him now?"

"When he told me that love was the death of duty, I didn't understand, not really. He was trying to convince me to stay at the Wall when I heard my father had been murdered. And his words worked, twice. I loved my father, I loved Ygritte, but I didn't turn from my duty for long. But now, for the first time, if I had to choose again between love and duty… I'd choose you, Dany, every time. And now I understand."

She let the silence after his words envelop her, let a pit grow in her stomach. He would give up everything for her? Had she ever been so loved? It hurt her to voice the thoughts swirling around in her head, but she whispered them anyway. "Jon… I cannot ask you to do that. What about your family, your people? You would never leave them when they needed you."

"Our people," he corrected, his voice strong and sure. "And… our family. If you'll have them."

"What?" she asked breathlessly, propping herself up on her elbow to see his face, to try to see if he meant what she assumed. Part of her ached with hope while another floundered, and Dany felt she might spiral into tears again. Happy tears? Or disappointed ones?

"Marry me. In front of gods and men." Happy tears then.

"Jon—"

He rolled so now he was propped above her, the dim light enough to highlight his cheeks and hide his burning gaze. He was breathtaking and yet she breathed. Looking at him, she felt he was the reason everything had happened to her; she was meant to find him, meant to hold him. He stroked her cheek, the corner of her lips with calloused fingertips. "I'm yours, my queen, now and always. I want to give you everything: myself, your kingdoms, a home, a family, children. But I promised myself I'd never father a bastard. I'd do it for you, I'd do anything for you, but I'm asking you to do this for me. I love you, and I swear I'll never take your crown, your kingdoms. I'm yours. Take me; make me yours in the eyes of gods and men as I already am here."

"I've never worried that you'd take my crown," she whispered in shock, searching his gaze. "I've only worried that I'd lose you. When—when you went beneath the ice…"

"I know. You'll never lose me."

"If… If our enemies know how much we care for each other, they'll try to hurt us."

"They'd try anyway," Jon said as she leaned into the hand he held cupped against her cheek. There was that wonderful feeling again, the feeling of being fragile and yet strong, flying and yet falling. "They'll always try to harm us. We are stronger together; don't you feel it?"

"Yes," she murmured, her lips grazing the inside of his palm. She wanted to kiss every inch of him, but held her eyes to his, tried to find any way to express how full she felt. She gave up—she'd have to show him another way. Instead, she took a deep breath. "If anyone takes you from me, they'll not live long."

"You'll—"

"I'll marry you. At Winterfell, in front of gods and men."


	5. Interlude: The Walls of Winterfell

Sansa watched the small party coming towards the gate. She recognized Brienne and Podrick well enough astride their horses, but the others…

"Is that the Hound?" Arya asked in disbelief. "I—I left him to die in the Vale."

Sansa saw him now; she had not realized it was truly him at first glance. The slope of his shoulders, the plainclothes, the hang of his head—none of them reminded her of the man. Whatever else had happened to the Hound had changed him.  _Good_ , she thought.  _Perhaps he will not frighten me so._  And yet she clutched the edge of her emerald cloak, the one she wore when she needed to feel safe, the one that once had been white, stained red. Would he recognize it so changed as it was? As she was? She could remember the pressure of his cruel lips against hers, his promise to protect her and kill anyone who might harm her and she wondered. What if she had not turned away, what if she had sung her song willingly and let him take her home?

"It is," she said in answer to her sister. "You've not mentioned that story yet."

"I did not want to remember it," Arya said after a pause. "He tried to bring me to Robb, and then to Aunt Lysa. They were both dead before we could reach them. Mother, too. I expect he would have tried to take me home if I hadn't…"

Sansa felt a pang of something like jealousy. He'd saved her little sister, but not her. He should've taken her.  _Don't be stupid,_  she thought vehemently,  _he could not when you begged him to leave._  She tore her eyes from his slouched posture and studied the foot soldiers, the rough man riding beside the Hound. Jon had not come yet, but perhaps he'd sent word ahead. The soldiers were Daenerys' Unsullied, she assumed, and the thought of letting two dozen unknown soldiers within their gates did not sit well.

"Lord Royce, I have need of a guard at the ready," Sansa said to the grizzled man at her shoulder.

"Yes, my lady," he said and left them alone atop the walls.

"Would you come with me?" she asked her sister.

"You want me to?"

"Of course." Sansa would not let her siblings leave her sight for long if she could help it. Despite the childhood spats, she'd missed Arya with desperation. They were a family.  _The pack survives,_  her father's voice whispered. She was a wolf, she needed her pack, and for better or worse, she had only Arya and Jon now. Bran was as lost to them as Rickon and Robb unless you knew to ask the right questions. Even Theon, the fool, still thought he was a kraken. Perhaps, deep down, he was, but Sansa knew he had wolf's blood too, and he'd been the family she needed when all else was lost.

They mounted up together and met Brienne a small distance away from the gates. The snows were getting deeper, making progress slow for the carts the Unsullied guarded. The dragonglass—Jon had come through.  _Of_ course _, he did,_  Sansa assured herself. He had been doing his best, playing the game Littlefinger had loved so much. Jon had some talent with it, though he fumbled sometimes still.

"My lady Sansa, Arya," Brienne called. "I'm glad to see you both well."

Sansa looked at her sister. She'd almost lost her to Baelish's machinations. Not again. Arya's eyes were glued to the unknown man, and Sansa's brow wrinkled as she scrutinized the stranger. He looked vaguely familiar, though she could not place him beneath the growing beard and thick cloak.

"And us you, Brienne, Podrick. Welcome back." Sansa hesitated, then turned her gaze to the Hound. "My lord Clegane, you made it North, after all, I see." The corner of his mouth twitched but his eyes had some other thoughts, other emotions swimming in them. His scar still marred his features, but it was not all she saw now. No, he looked changed, softer somehow. Sansa felt she might lose her composure if she did not speak again and so she asked, "Who is your companion?"

"Gendry?" Arya whispered, and Sansa watched the man nod hesitantly.

"Gendry Waters, my lady," Brienne was saying, "son of Robert Baratheon. He's pledged himself to your brother." Sansa could see the resemblance now and thought that Gendry looked more like a king than his father or even his false half-brother ever had. How Arya knew him would be a question for another time.

"Welcome to Winterfell," Sansa said. "Has Jon sent word with you?"

"We left him well in White Harbor. He and Daenerys are meeting the Dothraki and Lannisters at Moat Cailin and then coming North. He sent the dragonglass and Gendry ahead to begin forging weapons. The queen sent the Unsullied so they might begin preparing lodgings and defenses if you'll allow them, my lady."

Sansa nodded slowly. It was sound, and since Jon had bent the knee, perfectly reasonable. Baelish's voice whispered that she should take back the North, Vale, and Riverlands for herself, but Sansa knew better.  _The lone wolf dies,_  her father whispered. "Of course. We must do what we can. Come, let us share bread and mead, and then we can proceed with preparations."

She wheeled her horse about and led the way back inside. Winterfell was near full to bursting, but they would manage. They had to. Brienne dismounted in the yard and Sansa wondered at the tall woman's ease here. Her home was in the Sapphire Isles and yet Brienne looked like she belonged in the North. Podrick less so, but he was a devoted man. The Hound, she was surprised to see, did not seem out of place either. It was Gendry's reaction, however, that surprised her. He swept Arya up into a bear hug and swung her around as Jon used to, holding her as if she'd been lost to him, and Arya let him.

"I thought the Red Woman killed you," she said breathlessly when her feet were back on the ground.

"She tried. You made it home!"

"In a roundabout sort of way, yes. I saw Hot Pie. He's still at the inn."

"And you still have Needle."

Sansa felt Sandor at her back. "They met on your sister's way North, little bird, before I stole her from the Brotherhood," he said as Sansa watched the reunion. "I was going to trade her for a place with your brother's army. I've got one now too, just the wrong brother."

"I would not say the wrong one, ser. Had you joined Robb, you'd have joined him in death," Sansa said, trying to stay outwardly calm. Her insides were in turmoil at the sound of his rough voice.  _Little bird._

"I'm no knight," he growled, still himself on that point.

"And I'm no summer child anymore," she said, hoping she was right.

"And yet you're still looking for your Florian?"

"No." That was true, she knew. Florian had been a fool, and Jonquil more so. She would not be the little bird this time, she was not a foolish girl.

"Forgive me if I don't believe you," he said, just loud enough for her. They watched Gendry show Arya his war hammer and the dragonglass. Brienne had started organizing the offloading of the carts, coordinating with the new castellan to organize temporary quarters for the soldiers. And Sansa had never felt more alone.  _No, not alone,_  she thought.  _Only lonely._  She pulled the emerald cloak tighter about her shoulders. She knew how to be lonely, she could handle it.

"Come little bird, you promised bread and mead," Sandor said after Brienne had the castellan to work.

"I did, my lord," she said, not willing to provoke him by addressing him as a knight again. The Mother had not heard her pleas, to cool the rage he carried with him, it seemed. That was fine, he could rage all he liked.  _Little bird_. "And then we will have rooms made up for you and your companions."

Where she did not yet know. The lords and ladies from across the Kingdoms had filled every decent room. Unless she wanted him to appear in her chambers again one night, she'd have to manage. The thought made her stomach tighten and heat spread across her cheeks. No, that would not do, she knew. She would find him space.

That night, the usual nightmares left her, and instead, she found herself in the Wolfswood, alone among the snow drifts and barren trees. The hoofbeats of Ramsey's search party circled and she felt her tears freezing on her face. The gown Meryn Trant had ruined fell from her shoulders, pooled around her frozen legs. She could run no more, her breathing ragged as it tore from her chest. A sound, a cracking tree branch, came from behind her and she whirled, spilling onto her back. A wolf watched her from the edge of the clearing.

"Lady?"

But no, the wolf came closer and he was not a wolf at all but one of her father's wolfhounds, his fur patchy, his face and body disfigured by scars. She tried to back away, pulling herself through the white snow stained red. The dog advanced, a growl forever stuck on his face, but he did not attack, only came closer, circled her and sniffed her face, while her fingers turned blue with cold. He settled by her side with a sigh, curling his body against hers and tucking his nose under his crooked tail. Sansa hesitated, but then she wove her fingers into the limp grey fur. The snow began to melt away, and the moss beneath came to life while the dog slept on. The hoofbeats faded to nothing, and somewhere a songbird started to sing.

"They're all afraid of me," the dog said, then rested his jaws in her lap and let his grey eye come to rest on her face.

She woke with a start, clutching at her pounding heart. She half-expected to find Lady beside her, her breaths a quiet lullaby, but no, Lady was dead, as were most of her father's dogs, as they'd acquired a taste for men. No, she was alone. She knew she wouldn't fall asleep again, so she rose, dressed in something simple and pulled on her green cloak. It settled well about her shoulders from hundred of days under its warmth. She felt powerful in green, though she wasn't sure which had come first—the cloak or the feeling. It didn't truly matter, the cloak had not saved her from Ramsey or Littlefinger. She tried not to think of the short little man who'd made her feel so small as she walked to the walls where she stood to watch for Jon's return. Five more nights, she knew, until the dragons descended. She only hoped Jon knew what he was doing.

She watched the white winds blow across the hills, imagining figures in the swirls and flurries. She shuddered, not from cold, but from the thought that soon the figures might not be imagined.

"Running from your nightmares?" a rough voice asked, and Sansa whirled. She'd been certain she'd been alone. But there was the Hound, huddled in the shadows, his face cast in darkness. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of her fear so she took a deep breath to steady herself.

"Are you?" she asked, not expecting an answer.

"Your damned servants lit a fire in my grate," he snarled. Sansa clenched her jaw; she should have remembered. She would tell them in the morning.

"It's too cold to not have a fire," she said to steady herself.

"I would have survived," he growled. "Once you would have apologized and run to fix it for me with all your damned courtesies."

She didn't doubt he would have survived, nor that she would have tried to be the thoughtful mistress of Winterfell. Too much had changed for her to worry about the small things. Though she knew fire bothered him more than as a small thing. She should have remembered. She could not think of anything to say that would not be an empty courtesy, so she turned away from him to face the night, the light of the torches ghosting in her vision.

"Waiting for your sweet summer prince to come save you from your demons?" He spat the words with venom.

"No."

"What then, did you have a dream of Joffrey coming back to haunt you?" He wasn't letting up, always cruel, harsh, honest.

"There are worse things than Joffrey," she said, he voice catching on the name, coming out like one of the Hound's classic snarls. "You once told me life was not like one of my pretty songs. Consider my education complete in that area and leave me to forget the past in peace.  _Please_."

Angry tears bit her cheeks and she shut her eyes, wishing the nightmare would end, that she would wake up again, rested and as happy as she could manage. She didn't hear him leave, but she could outlast him in the cold, couldn't she? Surely she had some Stark blood in her, some of her father's strength, stoicism. She counted gusts of wind, wishing he would disappear on one.  _Please_ , she begged,  _I cannot take more cruel words tonight_.

"Do you regret not letting me take you away?" he asked, his voice coming from just next to her.  _Yes_ , she thought, but she could not admit it aloud. Not now, not to him.

"You scared me that night," she said instead. He took her roughly by the elbow, turned her toward him, reminding her of the night cast in the unnatural green glow of wildfire. His jaw was set in a near grimace as he stared down at her face, the torchlight highlighting and casting his scars in shadow by turns.

"And now?"

"No," she whispered and wondered if he would sniff out the lie as he once said dogs could or if she had improved in that at least.

"What did the world do to you, my little bird?" His voice was rough and raw as he lifted a gloved hand to wipe away her tears, gentle there whereas his hold on her arm felt like it might bruise.

"Just what you said it would." Would he steal a kiss again? Pull her against his hard, unrelenting chest? She lifted her own frozen fingers to cup his cheek as she once had; this time it was free of blood or tears.

"I did not think the world would give you worse than the blond bastard," he said.

"It did," she said, her voice swimming in bitterness. "I should have let you take me." It came out in an unexpected whisper, and she hoped the wind had taken the words away from his ears.

"You would not have been safe with me."

"I was not safe without you."

She felt his thumb brush the corner of her lips. "You survived."

Had she? She didn't feel like she had. In fact, she felt as though she'd died the moment he left her his white cloak and only a kiss to remember him by.

"So did Arya."  _And she has more memories of you._

"Not because of me."

"Are you so sure?"

"I couldn't even return her to her bloody family properly."

"She'd be dead or worse if you had."

"Worse? What is worse than death?"

"Plenty."

"The world took your song then?" he asked.

"Why? Did you want another?" she challenged him.

"No, my little bird, I'd not make you give another one."

 _My little bird._  It was the second time he'd said that. Did he think she was his now? "You could. The world has stolen everything else."

"Who hurt you? I'll kill them just like I promised," he growled.

"You're too late," she accused him, realizing for the first time that she was angry he'd not come to save her. He had saved her before, why hadn't he come? "Jon killed one, Arya the other. I don't need a shining prince, after all, my lord, when my family can do just as well. You were right."

"Little bird…"

 _Call me yours,_  she thought defiantly.  _It'd be true._

"And if your brother gets himself killed for rushing the damned Night King again? Or your sister takes on too many Walkers? What then? Who will save you then?"

"I can save myself now, my lord. I'm not a little child, hoping for her knight to save her."

"You? You can save yourself from the true monsters?" His face screwed up in scorn, then softened with some emotion she could not place.

"I'll do more than that. My people need me. I cannot wait to be saved when I need to save them. I will save them." Perhaps if she said it enough, it would become true. She must be getting better at the lying, she thought because he did not sniff out the falsehood.

"I did not want the world to break you little bird, only warn you it might," he said after a long time of searching her face. What did he find? The pain and fear and worry? Or the determination to be well, to be strong, to be more like Jon and Arya?

"Thank you for the warning, though it did not help me."

"Then let me help now. I told you once, they're all afraid of me. I'll keep you safe. This time."

"I do not need it," she insisted, though the warmth in her stomach at the words clenched and grew.  _He's no true knight but he saved me all the same._

"I know you do not need it, little bird, I'm only offering it." He spat the words, that rage making his face contort under her icy palm. He'd not made her move it yet, and his own fingers still cupped her chin, holding her gaze. She did not look away; the scar did not scare her as it once did. Pretty little boys caused more harm than he ever had to her.

"Do as you like," she challenged him.

"You'd not want that."

"And why not?"

"What I'd like," he said quietly, close to her face, his eyes never leaving hers, "is to fuck you bloody."

"You won't hurt me," she said, knowing he wouldn't, just as she had the first time he scared her with his violence. He was only trying to push her away.

"No, you're right. I'd not hurt you." He sighed and almost pulled out of her reach, but Sansa wasn't ready for him to disappear into the night again and leave her alone. She gripped his grey, rough-spun tunic, her fingers finding purchase in the wool beneath his own cloak. Did he recognize hers? She'd kept it much the same, aside from the color and the hood. He wouldn't think she'd kept it; he wouldn't know.

"I should have let you take me," she repeated, closing her eyes and ducking her head so he'd not see the new tears. If she didn't want him to think her a child, she'd have to stop weeping like one, she knew.

"Maybe," he rumbled, moving his hand from her chin into her hair, pulling her forehead to rest on his chest. His grip on her elbow loosened, and then he held her shoulders, as gentle as he'd ever been in the face of Joffrey's cruelty. They stood in silence for several minutes, just the sound of the torches crackling and the steady steps of the guards on the walls, avoiding them but sure to spread the word in the morning.

"Come, little bird. Let me take you back to your chambers," Sandor said gently. "You'll save no one if you don't sleep."

She went willingly enough, though she wouldn't sleep if she tried. Regardless, rest would help her in the morning when she was needed to help plan barracks and training yards for more men than she'd ever seen. They had to be within the walls, too, and Sansa didn't know how they'd manage that, not with needing to bring the Winter Town smallfolk in as well, should the Others descend without warning. Sandor took her hand on his arm and walked slow and even through the yard. Ghost paced by the gates, but he halted to watch them pass by, his ruby eyes following their movements. She missed Lady more and more when Ghost was around. He was the only direwolf left, though Arya had seen Nymeria on her way North, or so she said. She thought it was funny that the gods had left only Jon his Stark wolf when he was no Stark at all. Sandor stopped outside her door and looked down at her. "Your nest, little bird."

Sansa thought that she liked the way he said those words now, softly like they mattered, rather than as an insult. "Thank you."

He only nodded once and turned to leave her. Her heart fell as she watched him walk away down the long hallway and something angry grew inside her and rose in her throat. "You left me with a kiss last time, at least."

He froze, stock still in the flickering torchlight, and he didn't turn for a long time, long enough that Sansa regretted the words. He looked back at her over his shoulder, only his scar visible. "Are you sure about that?"

"I—" She stopped. Of course, she was sure. She could remember the feel of his lips, the way he'd held her close. A kiss and a cloak. That had been enough for marriage once. He'd promised to protect her, pulled her close, she'd closed her eyes… Sandor watched her, his back still to her but one grey eye locked on her face, watching her reel. Of course, he'd kissed her. She could remember.

"I only stole a song, little bird, though I would've stolen more," he said. Sansa's heart was pounding. No, he'd kissed her. She remembered. Didn't she?

"Then steal one now," she heard herself say over the rushing in her ears, though her mind scrambled. The kiss was real, surely. Wasn't it? Sandor was turning to watch her, to study her face. What did he see? She was lost, falling, falling. He'd kissed her. He'd been drunk, he wouldn't remember, but she hadn't been in her cups, she remembered every second.

"You'd not want that," he said, but it was a question, she could hear it in his voice.

"And if I do?"

He faced her then, took cautious steps back to her doorway, his face unreadable beneath the scar, the flickering light masking the rest. He'd been stained green by wildfire last time, she remembered that. When he was towering over her, she ached to reach out and touch him again, to make sure this was real. It had to be real. "I'm not one of your pretty little knights with sweet words and tender touches," he growled.

"I know." She knew too well. "Knights and princes and the rest have only hurt me. You'd never hurt me."

"Would I not?" He glowered in her face, so close she could feel the heat of his skin.

"No. You only wanted to protect me from them."

"Aye, and look how well I did."

"I survived," she said in a whisper, throwing his words back at him.

"That you did, little bird," he murmured, reading her gaze, but unwilling to close the small gap between their lips. She could feel his hesitancy, his concern that she was not thinking straight. He had that look about him, the one she recognized from when he'd call her a fool. She was certainly being a fool, but she knew what she wanted. She moved slowly toward him, lifting up onto her toes, to place a light kiss on his lips. He didn't react, not really, held still even as she pulled away. If the kiss the night of the Blackwater had been real, it was the opposite of this one. This one felt like heartbreak like she'd lost something precious and would never get it back.

"Seems to me you stole that one," he said, his voice rough, almost hoarse.

"Did I?"

"What do you want with me?" He asked it without expecting an answer but one sprang to Sansa's mind that she could not voice.  _Everything_. She did not answer him, only rested her palm in the center of his chest, counted his heartbeat. She closed her eyes, let the feel of it wash up her arm, through her own bloodstream towards her heart. The last time he'd been this close he had threatened to kill her. But he might have kissed her.

Sandor took a step towards her, and then another until Sansa had to back up or fall over. She opened her eyes to find his face and felt her back hit the wooden door. He'd smelled like wine and blood when he'd slept in her bed, waiting for her. This time he smelled like horse, sweat, and woodsmoke. He looked on the edge of rage again, and Sansa wondered what she'd said to make him so angry. He placed his hands on either side of her head, leaned into her hand until his face hovered just above hers. "Look at me."

She looked, her eyes flickering between meeting his gaze and his lips, wondering if they'd feel cruel and hard against hers or if she really had imagined them. His scar, pocked and raw, was by turns highlighted and shadowed by the wavering light. It had once made her think him hideous, but now she was hardly bothered by the sight. She lifted her other hand and gently ran her fingertips over the flesh. Sandor's eyes grew wide, but he did not stop her. When she ran her fingers over the burned corner of his mouth, she lifted her gaze back to his eyes, wondering if she'd gone too far.

"Little bird, you're not scared?" he asked, but when Sansa went to shake her head, she found she could not move because his lips had touched hers, gently, not rough and hateful as she'd imagined they might be. For surely she'd imagined the previous kiss, since she could not attribute the same to this man, with all his hesitation. She rested her palms on his broad shoulders, felt her fingers flutter with indecision over whether to grab him and pull him close or stay loose, should he change his mind. She didn't have time to make up her mind because he pulled away like he'd been burned. He would know.

Sandor cleared his throat and stepped back as if realizing they were still outside her door. "Goodnight, my lady."

And then he left her with one hand pressed to her lips and the other tangled in the green cloak that had once been white, stained red.


	6. The Gates

Dany landed Drogon on the hillside, a good distance from Winterfell. The castle was a maze from above and looked to be overflowing with people. With her was bringing thousands more, it struck her that they may not be able to feed all of those stomachs, that they may starve even if they fought back the Others. She took a deep breath and let the buffeting winds flow over her as Drogon took flight again. She felt as though she might melt away if someone looked at her wrong.  _You are a queen._ The _Queen,_  she admonished herself. The rebuke had her straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin. And then she heard the pair of horses breaking through the snow, and turned to find Jon riding toward her, her silver in tow. He had on that teasing smile, the one he held only for her, and she couldn't help the returning expression. She mounted her horse herself—a few doubtful  _kos_  were watching from the hilltop—and braced her shoulders again.

"Winterfell is lovely from above."

"I'll take your word for it," Jon replied, a note of laughter in his voice and her smile deepened. "Ready?"

She nodded once, unable to force herself to do more, and as their traveling party caught up, moved her silver into step with his great bay along the road to the gate. She took a deep breath, tried to still the shaking in her lungs. She wanted to be strong for Jon, strong for the North, strong for her people.  _So why_ , she thought,  _am I so afraid?_  It felt like weakness, the tremors she hid as the castle grew before them, a beast perched atop the rise, waiting. For what, she could not tell. The people within the walls waited, too, and she knew it was to weigh her, to judge her fitness. A guardsman atop the outer wall shouted something, and when they were within a hundred yards, the gates began to open.

"Something's happened," Jon said. "The gates are never closed during the day."

Dany only raised her chin in acknowledgment; she couldn't find her voice just then. The knowledge that one more thing had gone wrong in a train of hundreds compounded her anxiety over meeting Jon's family. Her future family. She saw them now, standing in reception to them, the pale faces and dark eyes watchful. A woman stood at the forefront, her bright auburn hair marking her as Jon's sister, Sansa. At her side, a boyish-looking girl stood at a soldier's attention, a thin sword at her hip and beyond her, a sickly looking young man in a wheeled chair. Various lords, ladies, and children stood behind, their eyes keen, their stances guarded, and Dany felt the scrutiny plainly. Jon's sisters, however, were not studying her. She didn't have to look at him to know that Jon's were locked on them as well.

"Go to them," she said, only for his ears. She met his gaze when he pulled it to her, forcibly and with considerable effort.

"No, my queen," he said. "I must do my duty to you, first."

"Go to them, Jon." She managed a weak smile as further encouragement.

He did not need to be told thrice. He leaped from his horse, and flew to them, nearly stumbling in the snow. It was the younger girl—Arya—who he swept up into his arms without a care for the pommels digging into his ribs, spinning her in a slow circle to stop his own momentum. It was Arya who dug her face into his shoulder and clung to him. It was Sansa who held back, who watched them for only a moment before she turned her appraising eyes on Dany, her affect the blank slate of courtesy. But then Jon was setting Arya down, walking to the girl with fire-touched hair, and putting his large hand against her cheek, pressing his lips to her forehead.

"Welcome home," she heard Sansa say, as she dismounted and handed her silver's reins to Kovarro. That struck Dany's heart.  _Home_. She'd be taking Jon away from them, away from his home when they married. Was she so selfish?

 _Yes_ , her heart whispered.

Jon was turning to the boy then, his face torn between relief and sorrow, before he gripped the child's shoulders hard, and murmured words Dany could not hear.

"Your Grace," Sansa said, coming forward before Jon could introduce them. It rattled Dany for only a moment while Sansa swept into a deep curtesy. The men and women behind her followed suit, if slowly. "Welcome to Winterfell."

"Thank you," she responded automatically, trying to smother the ache that said no one had yet welcomed her home, nowhere called her as it did Jon. She succeeded only by noticing that something haunted lay behind Sansa's composed gaze. Before the introductions could continue, Dany asked. "What is it?"

Sansa rose, flicked a glance at Jon, who was listening now, straightening from the boy's side. She squared her shoulders, then clasped her hands firmly. "We have news."

Dany wished the wolf woman would say whatever held her tongue. A pit of dread was opening in her stomach. When Sansa seemed to falter, Dany nodded for her to continue, though she wished instead the nightmare would end. "We noticed the gates were closed. What's happened?" Dany asked as further encouragement.

"The White Walkers," Sansa said after a deep breath. "They've breached the Wall."

"What?" Jon's voice broke through the sudden rushing in Dany's ears, sharp and tinged with panic. Why had they expected differently, she wondered? Of course, they would not have time to prepare, to house their troops, to mount a defense.

" _Khaleesi_?" Kovarro asked in her ear, quietly. He knew enough of the Common Tongue to get by, but he did not know enough to feel the same yawning despair as she so immediately. Dany shook off the beginnings of hysteria. She had to be strong. Had to.

"The cold ones have broken the ice wall," she said for his benefit, watching the faces of Jon's bannermen. All were steady, grim, watching her. She tamped the panic down further, swallowed it. She'd been born for this. She was the blood of the dragon. The last, the only, and yet she stood.

"The  _kos_ ," Kovarro said, nervousness edging into his voice. "We must warn them."

"How could you know this? Anyone could have sent the raven to drive us to rash action," Tyrion was saying from behind her as she nodded once in response to her bloodrider. In doing so, her gaze swept the crowd of Northmen, not one in doubt, and met the fierce brown eyes of a girl who could not be more than twelve. She seemed a brunette version of Wylla, just as fierce, just as strong. Dany lifted her chin, and let her composure break into a tiny, grim smile at the northern girl's deliberate inspection. That seemed to satisfy the girl.

"We did not have it from a raven, my lord—" Sansa began, but a flat voice cut across hers, sending a shiver down Dany's spine.

"I saw it." It was the boy who sat still beside Jon, a large man's hands upon the handles at the back, a pile of fur draped across his legs. Bran, she guessed, but Jon had not mentioned the coldness of his voice, the blank look in his eyes. He'd been a child when Jon had seen him last, now he was half a man, and skin-shudderingly dead behind the eyes. "They came, they marched, and riding upon a dragon, the Night King burst through the Wall in an arrow of blue fire. Eastwatch has fallen. The dead walk."

The shiver lodged in Dany's stomach turned to shudder and the hysteria returned in force to boil behind Dany's eyes. Her vision swirled, the world swayed.  _Viserion_. Only the knowledge that fainting would earn her no respect kept her from collapsing. Her child, ridden by the monster who'd killed him. It was too much. But she could not faint. She was the dragon, she was strong. She was the queen, and she had to be unmovable, even in this.

"That did not answer my question," Tyrion said, though even his own voice held a shake. "How could you know this?"

"I can attest to that. Bran speaks the truth," the large man said from behind the pale boy. He wore black maester's robes but no chain. "It's rather like greenseeing, but more powerful. He saw it happen, two days ago."

"Greenseeing? And we're supposed to trust that? No offense intended, my lord Reed."

As the green man smiled and made some pithy comment, Dany's eyes sought Jon's face. His jaw was tight, his cheeks ruddy, his eyes locked on Sansa. Dany followed his gaze, saw his expression mirrored there, watched the woman nod once, almost imperceptibly. It was enough for Dany. She swallowed, hard, and stepped forward. She was born for this.

"The truth can be proven later," she said evenly, cutting across Tyrion. "We will waste no more time by arguing and act as if it is true. If it is, we will be prepared, if it is not, we will have gained an advantage. You've notified your people?"

Sansa nodded. "We sent ravens immediately."

"Where do the dead march?"

"They raise their soldiers in the Gift," the flat voice said. Dany could not look at the crippled boy when he said such terrible things. Not yet. "They come for me."

"How long until we should expect them?"

"About eight days," Jon said after a moment. "Nine, if they fall upon Last Hearth. They do not need rest. But that is only if Bran saw it the moment it happened."

Dany did not wait for confirmation, she only tore her eyes away from Sansa's appraising gaze, found Jon's. His face was a mask of regret, sorrow, worry. "We must not blame ourselves," she said because she could see he was already doing so. "We must only press onward. Lord Tyrion?"

"Yes, Your Grace?"

"Assist Lord Snow and Lady Sansa in the defense and arming of the castle," she said, never looking away from Jon's face. "I assume you will be able to handle our people here."

"Your Grace?"

"I must go warn Grey Worm and the riders." She watched the worry harden in Jon's eyes, felt the chill in her heart at the thought of leaving him again.

"Surely we can send someone on horseback," Tyrion said.

"Drogon will be faster," she said coolly. She longed to reach for Jon. To hold him, just in case. She wanted to tell him—she cut off the thought. She would see him again, she would get the chance. She had to.

"Khaleesi, it is too dangerous," Jorah said. "Think of Viserion."

"He is all I think about," she snapped, tearing away from Jon's gaze to whip her hard glare to the man. She softened immediately, saying, "It is because of him that I must go. They'll not take our people, too."

She returned her eyes to Jon, always to Jon. He was her haven, her island in the storm. Her strength. "I will be safe. I trust you can manage things here."

Jon did not answer her—he knew the words were not wholly for him. He only watched her, his eyes drinking her in, raking every inch of her body, scorching her into his memory. She knew only because she did the same, though she could not believe they would be separated. If she did, the hysteria would drown her. Finally, he nodded once, so tiny a movement she doubted anyone else noticed.

"My queen," he murmured.

Dany's smile for him was wan as she hardened her heart, then leaped into her silver's saddle. She turned the beast to sweep her attention across the wide courtyard, to take in all who'd come to greet her. There were familiar faces in the crowd, and that helped, but she could only nod once to them all. "My lords, my ladies, I will return to greet you properly, and soon. An army of our own approaches. We will win this war together. For our people, for ourselves, for the North, and for Westeros! We will not fail. We must not. I trust in you. Given time, I hope you may trust in me," she called across their heads in her strongest voice.

And then she looked down, to find those gray eyes she so loved looking up at her. Jon; her love. He was close enough to touch her, for her to reach down and run her fingers across the stubble collecting on his jaw, but she could not, not here, not just now. His own hands were clenched at his sides, raging a war to reach for her and losing.

He needed to know.

"Come back to me," he said, softly, his lips barely moving as he continued to memorize her face. She counted the beats of her heart as it squeezed, knowing her voice would not be steady. Despite her efforts, it came out in a hoarse whisper anyway.

"I will," she managed. "Always."

One long moment later, she lifted her gaze to sweep it over the crowd again, then nodded goodbye. "Blood of my blood, ride with me. I must call Drogon down to warn the riders. You will stay here, be my voice with the  _kos_. Ser Jorah will help you."

"Yes, blood of my blood." He mounted as Dany swung her silver back towards the gates, and followed closely, his arakh poised for defense. Dany had to straighten her spine to be sure she did not shirk and go running back in Jon's arms, where it was safe. Her people needed her. She allowed herself a moment of weakness once she was through the gates, and turned back to find him watching her, the deep sadness he carried etched across his features. She could feel the weight of it across the distance. She would see him again, surely. The gods would not be so cruel. They had been cruel before, so she sent up a prayer, a plea.

 _Please_ , she thought,  _please. I want to tell him. I want him to know._

Kovarro stood with her in the snow, at the ready should a wight stumble upon them even this close to the castle. He did not flinch when Drogon landed and roared as if trying to bully the man. "Be safe, blood of my blood."

"I will," Dany promised again, nodding once to him before he stepped back to give Drogon room to leap into the air and circle the castle once more, his voice roaring while Rhaegal screeched his greeting. She looked down as he swept over the courtyard, found the grey eyes she sought in the sea of pale faces and felt her heart reach out, try to fly back to him. When her child swept her away, Dany bent low over his neck, pointed him south along the King's Road, and let a few tears escape her lashes, and felt the freeze upon her cheeks.

 _Please_ , she prayed to the Mother as the pale moon came into view in the afternoon sky, peering through the clouds, her face partly hidden in shadow. It had been five days since the full of the moon, three days since Dany had missed her moon's blood. She had not yet told him, she had not been sure, she had wanted to wait until the week had passed. But now she wanted him to know. She wanted to go back to him, to tell him that he'd given her all she'd ever wanted. To tell him that they'd made their own family.

 _Please_.


	7. The Lord's Chambers

When the dragon had borne Dany away from him—again, he thought—Jon prayed the old gods would keep her safe. She'd held up well at the mention of Viserion, but that meant nothing. He knew she'd have shattered if she'd been alone, if it had been only them in the courtyard, and not hundreds of their people. And her eyes… they'd seemed to steal his soul with the depth of their pain when she realized she must leave. There were other options, but she'd been correct; Drogon was the fastest way to bring word to the army, and no one could ride him but her. He'd known better than to argue; he'd denied her once by saying kings needed no permission, he could not deny her this duty she wanted—no, needed—to take. He did not blame Jorah or Tyrion for trying. He'd have held her back if he knew she would let him.

He had to drag his gaze away from the clouds to turn to his family, with the unlikely addition of Sam. "This is not how I imagined us reuniting," he said to them when he'd met their stares. Arya's gray eyes were locked on his own. "Little sister."

"Big brother," she said, and then he pulled her into his arms again and kissed the top of her head fiercely, glad that she was real, substantial, and not going anywhere again. Sansa watched on, flanked by both Sandor and Lady Brienne, her eyes nervous, her mouth trying not to twitch into a smile at such a time.

"I need to talk to you," his little brother—his only brother—said, his voice ghostly and bone-chilling. It forced Jon to let Arya go, to turn to survey his brother or the shell of him, at least.

"Perhaps not just now, Bran," Sam Tarly said over him. "Now is not the time."

"We'll talk," Jon promised the boy. "Sam, how did you come to be here? What happened at Old Town?"

"A story for later, I think."

"Gilly and baby Sam?"

"Both well, and here, in the kitchens."

"Good. I have things I need to tell you," Jon said, thinking of Dickon and his father.

"Later. Stories can wait," Sam said again, a soft smile on his full face. Jon had missed him, wished he could reach out and feel that he was real as well. After losing so many and so much, he took nothing for granted anymore. And he'd lost more without even knowing. Had Tormund survived? Lord Beric? And Edd? Did Edd even know the Wall had fallen?

"You're right. Sansa…"

"Jon," she said simply, and he hugged her as he had Arya, kissed her forehead. Arya seemed to appraise the gesture with a soldier's keen eye.

"I want to hear what's happened," he said to her, "since I gave you that sword."

"You will. I want to know when you two started getting along."

"You're one to talk," Sansa said, sharing a smile with Arya that left Jon stunned momentarily.

"We definitely need to talk," he said, "but now…"

Now, they had to create a plan to turn back the army of dead men coming for them, for Bran, if he spoke the truth. Jon dismissed most of the onlookers and led the way to the Great Hall, with Tyrion and the rest of Dany's retinue falling into step behind. Jon tried to shake the fear that clutched his heart for her, but he'd always known there was no changing her mind, only helping her to see all of her options. She needed to reassure herself that her men were well.

They passed hundreds of refugees, and in one of the courtyards, a troupe of children learning to spar. That it had come to that… Jon couldn't dwell on it, though most of them looked younger than Rickon had been.

"So does the queen often risk herself like that?" Sansa asked on his arm.

"When it's necessary," Jon said with a bit of pride, despite the ache in his chest. Dany did as he would do, were he in possession of a dragon. He could not deny it. "She saved us beyond the Wall, which I'm sure you've heard from Sandor and Gendry, and has ridden Drogon into battle at least once."

"She was advised against the second," Tyrion said dryly from Sansa's other side.

"My lord husband," Sansa said in response, not unkindly, but rather with a hint of amusement that shook Jon for another moment. "I'm glad they did not take your head for Joffrey's death."

"Lady wife. They tried," the dwarf said.

"You'll be happy to know at least one of the people who used you as a scapegoat has met his end."

"Who?" Jon asked, unaware of this development.

"Lord Baelish," Arya said. "He did not die well." Jon would have shuddered, but the look in Arya's eyes prevented it. She had no shame, only pride, and he knew that had he been given proof, he'd have gutted the weasel. He let it pass and knew it would be one of the stories they told in front of the fire that night, hopefully when Dany was once again at his side, and he could introduce her to his siblings properly. Or at least his sisters.

"Two," Jaime Lannister supplied from behind his brother, his stride in step with Lady Brienne's. When Jon glanced back, the once-golden man looked at his feet. "Lady Olenna had a part in that scheme."

Jon watched Tyrion's jaw tighten, but the imp said nothing until they entered the Great Hall in a clamor of voices.

It took time to convince Tyrion that Bran spoke the truth. Jon had believed Sam and Sansa, but had his quiet doubts, until hearing his brother spout private moments between people who ought to have been alone was enough to convince all and sent the Spider into pale, quiet contemplation. It took hours more to plan, strategize, organize. They created schedules of hunting parties, found men who could help construct temporary housing for the smallfolk who sought shelter, found carpenters and builders for war machines, argued over whether the smallfolk would stay. It took Jon shouting for quiet in the last argument to get the men and women to listen.

"We will struggle to feed and house so many people, it is true. If we could send them somewhere safe, we would, but nowhere is safe. If we send them where they are unprotected, they may become the target of attack. It is an army of dead men. Every battle, every undefended person feeds their ranks. They stay, they contribute to the cause, and when spring comes, there will be people yet to plow the fields, to raise livestock. They stay."

It was nearing sunset when Jon found himself blessedly alone in his father's old chambers—his own while he was Lord. He'd thrown the shutters wide to let in a breeze, or so he'd tell anyone who asked. He truly wanted to have his eyes on the sky, watching for Dany's return. He found his eyes raking the clouds every few moments, rather than focusing on the notes he needed to send to Wyman Manderly and the other Lords who remained in their own holdfasts. He'd finished the one meant for Edd, at least. He didn't need to mince words with Edd.

Edd, We've had word that Eastwatch fell to the Others. Is it confirmed? How many lost? Are you safe? Thank you for my brother's return. Jon

The words stared back at him from the scroll, taunted him with the unknowns. Was Edd even alive? He had to push the thought away. Edd would answer him, he had to. To clear his head, Jon stood and walked to the windows facing south again, leaned against the sill and took slow breaths of the frozen air, searching for two swooping dots on the horizon, where already the sky was turning a golden yellow. He sunk into the peace of the moment, forgot everything but that color, burning the clouds. The shadows at the tops were the same darkened lilac as Dany's eyes when she was in a temper, and he smiled to think that she was riding those clouds, her silver hair blending with the sky as Drogon flew. He did not think he would sit the back of a dragon well, though he'd try it if she asked. The power, the heat that had laid beneath Drogon's skin had given him a shiver of pleasure, but the beast was massive and deadly. Dany had mentioned that Jaime Lannister had tried to ride them both down with a lance; Jon envied the man's courage, but not his idiocy, nor his family.

A knock at the door tore him back to the sharp reality, to the ache in his chest. He turned, one hand ready to draw Longclaw. "Enter." He relaxed—with effort—when Sam opened the heavy door, a hesitant, nervous smile on his face, and Bran on the landing behind him. "Sam, come in," Jon said, trying not to feel stiff with Bran's presence.

"It's good to see you, Jon," he friend said as he rolled Bran's chair close to the fire.

"And you," Jon said, moving forward to put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "How did you come to be here? The Citadel—"

"The Citadel is full of fools," Sam said in a show of force Jon couldn't remember him possessing. "Old men determined to ignore the truth in front of their eyes for the books beneath their noses."

"Says the man who could lose himself in any book," Jon said, smiling at Sam's vehemence.

"Yes, well, I can do both. I trust my eyes, the words of my friends, and the lines written by dead men. I trust myself, Gilly, and you. Besides, we have no time for books now. When the Walkers are gone, we can find answers."

"You surprise me, Sam," Jon said, slowly.

"You wait," Sam said, grim. "Not much will surprise you, soon."

"What do you mean?" Jon sat next to his brother at the hearth and tried not to shudder when he realized he could only see the whites in Bran's eyes.

"Eddard never told you about your mother?"

"You know he did not."  _We'll talk about your mother._  He heard the words, the last words his father had ever said to him. "He meant to visit me at Castle Black, but..."

"But," Sam agreed, his mouth an anxious pout.

"What is it, Sam?" Jon had a feeling, and a spark of hope lodged in his throat. "Have you—" He had to swallow, hard, to get the words out. "Have you found her? My mother?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

The spark grew into an ember, burning within him. "Who is she?"

"Was," Bran's deathly soft voice said, cutting across Jon's heart.

"She's dead?" Jon asked, knowing it had been too much to wish for, too much joy for him to possess. At Sam's nod, Jon tore his gaze from his friend's pity and stared into the flames. "Who was she?"

"Ly—"

"Bran, that's perhaps not the best way to tell him," Sam said quickly, cutting off the words. Jon wanted to be angry with his friend for denying him the knowledge but couldn't find the will. He'd never expected to know her name, never expected to meet her, but having glimpsed the chance at both, and being allowed only one, all in only a few moments, left him feeling numb.

"What is the best way, Sam?"

"Jon, I—" Sam cut himself off when he met Jon's eyes. "Eddard made your mother a promise. Bran saw them, in one of his visions."

Jon glanced at Bran briefly, then back to Sam. "What was the promise?"

"'If Robert finds out, he'll kill him. You know he will. You have to protect him. Promise me, Ned. Promise me.'"

Jon froze, staring at Bran, who in turn stared into the flames. When his brother his eyes round to meet Jon's, Jon had to force himself not to move away. It was not Bran behind that face, Jon was sure of it. "Robert? Baratheon?"

"Yes," Sam confirmed, "we believe so."

"Why would he want to kill me? The man had more bastards than anyone, surely he wouldn't care..." Jon trailed off at the look in Sam's eyes. "Who was she, Sam? Who was my mother?"

"Your mother was not why Robert would have killed you, Jon." Sam sighed, scrubbed at his beard. "Robert hated your father."

"No. No, they were best friends; he named him his Hand—"

"No," Bran said. "He killed your father."

Jon had to clench his jaw. "Father died on the steps of the Sept of Baelor."

"Yes, Eddard did, Jon. I'm trying to handle this delicately—"

"Well, don't. Tell me plainly, Sam, and tell me now. Who was my mother?" Jon was fighting the cold anger around his heart, and in an attempt to relieve some, stood to pace back to his desk—his father's desk, Eddard's desk. When Sam's silence had extended too long, he whirled. "Who was my mother, Bran?"

"Lyanna Stark."

"Aunt Lyanna? No—"

"Yes," Sam said. "But before you jump to an incorrect conclusion, as you already have... Eddard was not your father. He only claimed to be in order to protect you, to fulfill your mother's wishes. To fulfill his promise."

Jon reeled. "No. No, I'm... I'm Eddard Starks's son. His bastard son."

"You're not. Bran saw your parents in a vision—"

"And we can believe him?" Jon accused.

"We can, Jon, and you know he's already proven so."

"So I'm Lyanna's bastard then," he spat. "She never married; she was Robert's betrothed when Rhaegar—" The world seemed to spin, just for a moment, and then Jon felt it stop. Just stop. "Rhaegar?"

"Yes, but—"

"Lyanna was raped, Sam. Kidnapped and raped. She had a child?"

"She had you, Jon, but—"

"Rhaegar. I'm..."

"Rhaegar's son, but—"

"I'm the product of rape, Sam. I'm still a bastard, just not the bastard I thought I was!"

"No," Bran said.

John didn't hear him, not right away. He was spiraling, his world shifting. Lyanna, who he'd always heard tell was beautiful and rash, like Arya.  _Arya—little sister—no, cousin._  Rhaegar, the Prince of Dragonstone, who put down his harp to learn the sword, who stole a girl and destroyed a dynasty, who died with Robert's warhammer in his chest. Dany's brother.  _Oh, gods, Dany._  A hole opened in the floor and his stomach dropped through it. "Rhaegar's bastard."

"No," Bran said again.

"What?" John spat, turning his rage and despair on the husk of his younger brother—cousin.

"She loved him, and he loved her."

"Let me explain, Jon, before anything else is said," Sam said quickly. "Rhaegar and Lyanna were in love. They eloped. Rhaegar didn't kidnap her; she went willingly. Septon Maynard married them—Gilly found it in a manuscript at Old Town. I think I brought it with me, I'm not sure. More than that, Bran saw them. They married beneath a weirwood. You're Rhaegar's trueborn son."

"No—"

"Yes," Sam said, forcefully but gentle. "But when Eddard found you, Rhaegar was dead. Robert had won. And your mother… she was dying. Something went wrong as she was giving birth to you. So, she made Eddard promise." Sam paused, and Jon felt empty, stripped, laid bare. "Robert would have killed you if he knew. Like he killed your father."

Like he had the Mountain kill Elia and the children.  _My siblings. Oh, gods, like Dany._

"Why?" he asked. He knew, but he needed someone to say it. "I was only a baby. What harm is a baby?"

"You are the heir to the Iron Throne," Bran said, staring into the hearth, his eyes white again. "She named you Aegon Targaryen."

"No," Jon managed, before the darkness within him began to eat away at the edges of his vision. "No. I'm just Jon. I'm…"

The last thing he heard was the sound of Ghost letting out a gut-wrenching howl as the world faded.

"Ghost."


	8. The Crypts

A few of the pale people screamed, but Ghost did not hear them. His little cousins answered his cry of rage and pain, taking up the call. He needed to run, to run far away. He'd leaped up to howl at the half-moon, but now he threw himself into a sprint, racing towards the walls, to the fallen tree that his brother used to climb before he died beyond the ice cliff. He felt his sister, somewhere in the world, and she picked up the call, her pack of cousins joining in to tear against the sky. He missed her, he missed their dead siblings.

He climbed the flimsy, rotting trunk and pushed through the branches to the top of the stone wall. He leaped down into the snow, the sunlight not touching the cold of the day through the clouds. He burst into a full-tilt run, something he hadn't done since he'd been a pup. Now he needed to; he needed to run away from the stone hills, from the humans who hurt him, from something he couldn't quite place. He reached the tree line of the forest where his cousins hunted, dodged trunks and shrubs, running and running into the distance, away, just away. His cousins followed him, asking for a hunt, for a good howl, for some time. He ran on, refusing to answer their yips and barks of pleasure until they left him to his sprint. He needed to get far, far away. The snow fell lightly, but it did not touch his skin, only his fur before it fell away behind him, leaving a trail of fallen ice to whisper of his passing.

When he felt he had left the people far enough behind, he paused at the top of a rise, out in the open again. There was a frozen lake, another set of stone hills in the distance, all covered with flurries. Ghost saw a white rabbit run across the frozen surface but he did not give chase. He could not find the will or the want.  _I'm coming, brother,_  his sister called.  _You need me. I'm coming home._

An owl dropped down and caught the rabbit, and Ghost's breath fogged the air. If he didn't feel such sharp pain, it might have been beautiful, he might have howled again, but this time for the pleasure of a good run, of a hunt well done, for the joy of the day-moon. Instead, he chose to run again, toward the sunrise place this time, diving through the drifts and shrubbery that stood against the white. Running would take away the pain.

The big road his siblings had walked before they were lost to him came upon him soon enough. He smelled horses, many horses, and leather like his man wore, the sharp tang of shiny sticks. Pale and dark men alike, barking at him, raising curved sticks or long wooden ones. A sky snake howled deep above him, so he looked up, just to see.

And then he was flying.

Ghost stayed on the ground and howled, but Rhaegal screeched in answer, and swooped higher in the frozen sky, rolled, frightened. His brother flew below with Mother on his back, but she was not Mother, he thought. She was Dany, beautiful, sweet Dany, the woman he wanted to hold every moment, the woman who was not a stranger, the woman who was family. She shouted something— _settle, Rhaegal_ —and he tried, he tried to settle, for Mother.

Ghost howled again, and he ran away, ran alongside the horses, and he did not look up again. It hurt to look up, it hurt to fly. He was a wolf, not a sky snake, not a dragon. He was a wolf. He ran and ran, and the horses startled when he dodged through them, snorting and rearing, but he didn't mind, he didn't want a horse. He wanted dark and quiet. Peace. He knew where to go for that. It was a long run back.

He jumped atop the wall again, pushing hard off his back legs, and leaped over the pale people from atop it. They screamed and scattered again, but he stayed running, ignoring them, past the broken stone cave, down and down into the darkness. He knew where to go. He flew down the narrow cave past the stone men, the stone wolves, the shiny sticks. He knew how far to run, but he stopped short. The last stone man was not the one he wanted. It was the one before it.

The stone woman, with the feather in her hand, the flowers on her head. This was Mother. Not his wolf-mother, no. His woman mother, who he had not known until tonight. Ghost thought she smelled like all the stone people, but she was different. The only woman among the stone men, strong like his sisters' women. His man loved his women, cared for them, but he had not known that he loved this one until tonight. He held pain about this woman when he didn't know who she was. Now he knew, but he hurt more. Everything hurt.

Ghost whined, and he could not stop whining, looking at this woman. He wished she weren't stone. Mothers knew what to do. They growled at your brothers if they were mean to you, they helped you learn to hunt. His mother had died. Both had, woman and wolf. His cousins told stories though, and the cold lady had done what mothers do for his siblings' people.

The last stone man had been a father, but he wasn't Father. Fathers cared, fathers kept you in line, taught you the night howl. The man had done all that, but he was not Father. It was confusing and painful, and made Ghost whine louder. He missed him and wondered. Had the man the stone woman loved been a good man? Had he been a good father? Would he have been? He wished he knew, he wished he'd known them. He wished they were here. Mothers and fathers made the pain go away.

He wanted to be a good man. A good wolf. He had always tried to be a good wolf, like the stone man. The man in the strange chair, his brother's man, had said he was a sky snake. He hadn't wanted to be a sky snake, his man didn't want that. He wanted to be a wolf, just a white wolf with his grey wolf brothers and sisters.

 _Dany_. The man could still hear, and he heard the white-haired woman's voice. She was angry, so angry, and scared. Why was she scared? The man wanted to protect her, to help her, but he hurt too bad. He wanted to be a wolf. Just a wolf.

Ghost howled, mourned, and listened to the way the stone cave howled back. It sounded like him, but long and sad and low. The stone woman stayed stone, and she stared down at him with sad eyes under the flowers in her hair. Ghost would protect this stone woman like the stone wolves protected their stone men. And when she needed it, he would protect the white-haired woman, too.

 

Drogon landed beyond the outer walls to the chorus of men marching—rather more like jogging—and let Dany down gently on his shoulder, grumbling and making quiet huffs with his nose. Rhaegal landed further off, eyes roaming, feet shuffling, having recovered from his mid-flight panic. Dany wished she could feel their thoughts, know what they were thinking. It would have helped when Rhaegal had suddenly screeched and swooped and rolled just as a white wolf—Ghost, she guessed—had joined and then burst through the ranks of her Dothraki, howling. She had to settle herself with knowing them by having raised them from when they were only the size of her arm. She scratched the spot just behind Drogon's jaw that itched him, and stroked the scales on Rhaegal's nose that made him rumble in pleasure. He seemed himself now, though he'd given her such a fright. She'd thought Viserion had come upon them, that the Night King had come to claim another, to destroy. Viserion had liked to feel her fingers on his cheeks, and had leaned into her hands so gently he might have had the weight of a cat. The memory made a shard of pain pierce her heart, so she turned away from it and walked toward the castle gates. Her children took off, calling their goodbyes and going to circle the gathering army in the twilight sky.

She was let in the gates without issue, and saw Jorah and Lord Royce—a man she had yet to meet—preparing to ride out to speak with her commanders. Her  _kos_  nodded to her and Kovarro approached. "Blood of my blood, what do you wish?"

"The men must be within the walls. It is not safe outside the stone hut."

Kovarro nodded and turned to instruct the  _kos_  who'd remained. It was then that she saw Tyrion, standing halfway across the yard, that expression on his face that did not bode well, his fists clenched at his sides, his jaw tight. When he met her gaze, she felt a stone drop through her stomach, and knew something had gone wrong, more than it already had. He made his way slowly toward her, and Dany's vision tunneled to only him, no matter the number of people who crossed between them. She knew it was Jon, knew that she'd somehow lost him, that the gods had heard her plea and laughed at it. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin.

"Your Grace," he began, his tone gentle.

"What's happened?"

"That's a rather interesting question."

"Tell me." She could not understand why he tried to delay the inevitable. Despite the surge of annoyance, she could not be mad at him for long. He'd given her the chance to come home, brought her to Westeros, to Jon. Everything else might be forgiven. She needed to show her strength here, though, and so she let the anger flare. He hesitated still, and so she asked the question she did not want the answer to, the one that was aching to come from her lips. "Where is Lord Snow?"

Tyrion swallowed hard. Dany felt the beginnings of a shake working into her stomach. "Where is Jon?"

"That is a question with a rather strange answer as well," the man said, delaying again. Dany only stared at him, fury and pain clouding her vision. It was enough to make the Imp let the answer loose. "His chambers, my queen. I can take you there."

He started to walk, his short pace slow due to the snow. Dany did not urge him on, though worry was eating at her heart, and pain and fire. Regardless of whether she survived the winter, she would bring fire and blood to the gods. They had so often toyed with her.

They were halfway across the courtyard when Kovarro caught them up, his jaw tight with being left behind. "Blood of my blood, you cannot be unprotected here. The pale men are spiders who will stab you in the heart if they have the chance."

"Stay with me," she said, nodding. Without Jon, she was in a pit of snakes who held no allegiances except to Sansa Stark, a woman she had not the chance to know yet. Kovarro kept her pace, her only bloodrider left, the only family she had left if Jon were gone. There were others who may hold her cause now, but should the winds change, only Kovarro was sworn to her until her death.

They reached Jon's chambers, and Tyrion knocked on the rough-hewn door, but Dany pushed past him and entered without waiting for the door to open. She found Jon laid out on the bed, eyes wide and white, his breaths shallow. Alive, her internal voice breathed. Still alive. Brandon Stark sat by the window in his wheeled chair, looking out, and Samwell Tarly stood poised to open the door, but it was not his eyes that she sought.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked of Sansa Stark, who had risen from Jon's side, his hand still gripped in hers, her eyes worried.

"You-your grace," Tarly said. "He-he's—"

"Tell me," she spat at him, and then pulling in her calm, she turned back to Sansa, and said in a hoarse half-whisper. "Tell me."

"He's with Ghost," Bran said in that terrible voice. "In the crypts."

"He's right here!" She gestured to his figure laid out, his hair strewn about, his skin pale and his eyes unseeing. "How can he be in the crypts? He's not—he's not dead."

It came out more like a question though she could see his chest moving. Sansa, still standing, broke in. "He's alive."

"Your Grace," Tarly said, stronger this time. "Jon… he's a warg, Your Grace. Bran says he's gone into Ghost."

"What in seven hells is a warg? Is he safe?" Her voice was dangerously close to cracking, and she saw that Sansa could tell, but she held the woman's gaze regardless. She would understand best, surely. She had lost too many people not to feel Dany's pain.

"A warg is a child's tale," Tyrion said, "of men who can change skins, and join with the mind of animals."

"It is not a child's tale, no more than a dragon is," Samwell argued back, and Dany found a glimmer of respect in her sorrow and rage and confusion. "He has warged, and Bran has seen him go to the crypts wearing Ghost's form."

"The crypts. Show me." When no one moved, Dany half-growled in fury. "Show me!"

"Yes, Your Grace," said Samwell, and he moved toward the door. Dany moved at his side, Kovarro following, hardly seeing the faces of the people they passed. The man led them towards the flame of the weirwood, where Dany had placed all her future hopes, but stopped short near a destroyed tower. "Down through here, Your Grace."

Dany stared down the dark steps, down and down. It was like trying to see through pitch. The oblivion called to her, but she did not move. "Lead on."

"Your Grace, Ghost is not tame."

"Then get me a torch," Dany said, aware she was crazed with worry. "I will find him."

"Are—"

"We need him. I'm bringing him back. A torch."

The man ran off, and Dany could not tear her eyes away from the darkness. She would not lose him. She could not. She needed him. Damn the war, damn the throne if he was gone. The world need not live if he were dead.

" _Khaleesi_?"

"Jon Snow is a skin-changer. His second skin, his wolf, is down in the place where they bury their dead. Down in the dark."

"You are…"

"I'm going to bring him back," she said, quietly.

"It is not safe."

She did not deny it, and did not have to when Samwell came back, carrying a torch in either hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked as he handed her one and started down ahead of her.

"He's my best friend, Your Grace. Perhaps Ghost will recognize me." She only nodded once and compared him to the image of his father and brother, the men too proud to kneel. They were night and day, and she found that spark of respect growing larger for this guardian than the contempt she held for the soldiers.

"Thank you, Sam," she said at last, and then let Kovarro follow him into the darkness before she took a breath and began the descent. Down they went, level after level, and the darkness, the endless descent had Dany recalling the warlocks' tower. She did not have Drogon on her shoulder to defend her now, and part of her wished she did.

"I think the newer statues are on this level," Sam whispered, though there was no one but the dead to hear. Dany wasn't listening. She strained. She could hear something coming from outside their circle of light. She hushed him gently, and both of the men held their breath as she leaned forward, taking cautious steps. Kovarro caught her arm and walked a step before of her, his  _arakh_  poised ahead of them. She did not begrudge him that. The wolf that had run through the marching army had been as large as a horse.

There was a quiet whine coming from the shadows, and they moved toward it. She only glanced at the stone men and their rusting swords. The direwolves at their feet were massive carved beasts, and Dany had to look away from them. The torchlight warped their features so they looked more like the gargoyles of Dragonstone, warning her back. She did not turn, only powered onward, trying to see beyond the protective glow of the flame and the shadow of Kovarro's shoulder. The whine grew steadily louder, and Dany hesitated, stopping to look about momentarily. "Rickard Stark," she murmured to Sam, asking a question.

"Jon's grandfather. Forgive me, Your Grace, but your father… well, he burned him alive before the Trident."

"And Brandon. He was the one who strangled himself the same day?"

"Yes; Jon's uncle." Dany filed this away, knowing well now that her father truly had been mad. Dany felt the cruelty when she looked at the stone-carved faces of men he'd tortured. She'd burned men, burned Sam's family. He would not know, or he would not be here now. Unless it was a plot to get her alone. He had failed there, with Kovarro poised to protect her.

They took another couple steps forward, and the light fell upon a woman, the first Dany had seen among the carvings. She was beautiful, a feather resting in her palm, a stone crown of roses in her hair. She carried no sword, but she had her own direwolf by her ankles. Ghost.

His red eyes turned on her, the whining increased in pitch for just a moment. Dany's heart froze. He was as big as a stallion; if she had to guess, she'd say the wolf would measure 16 hands easily, and he seemed to possess more fur than any bear. This could not be her Jon, here in this body. "Jon?"

The whine deepened to a rumbling growl as Kovarro lifted his  _arakh_  higher, tried to push Dany back. "Blood of my blood—"

"No." Dany refused to be turned away. If this was Jon, her Jon, he'd not hurt her, he'd never. "Jon, come back. We need you." She paused, unsure whether she should release her vulnerability in front of a near stranger, no matter how close he had been to Jon. She decided against it. "Who is she?"

"Well…" Sam said, hesitant. "Lyanna Stark, Your Grace."

Dany stared beyond the massive white wolf to the woman her brother had loved. The she-wolf, Barristan had called her once. The woman a war was fought over. Dany could see her beauty even through the aged stone. The artisan had carved her with sad eyes. She looked like Jon.

Dany did not turn her gaze back to Ghost as she asked, "Why her, Jon?" The near-constant growl dropped into a whine, and she saw him look up at her out of the corner of her eye.

"I could tell Your Grace—"

Sam's offer was cut off by a snarl, and Dany jumped in her skin while Kovarro tried to push her back again. She turned back to the creature. He was staring at Sam, who shook in the space next to her. "No, that will be fine Sam. You can leave us."

"Your Grace, are you sure?"

"Yes, Sam. Thank you. He'll not attack me. He would not." Dany was not so sure now, but she had to hope. She repeated the same to Kovarro, and though he tried to argue, she only insisted, allowing that he could stay close enough to hear her call. The bloodrider backed away with Sam, and she braced herself for the loss of the extra light. When it had faded to halfway down the passage, she tore her eyes away from Jon's eyes in Ghost's face and set her torch in a sconce next to Lyanna Stark. She stayed quiet until the growl faded and silence fell around them like a blanket, except for their breathing.

"She's beautiful. I can see why Rhaegar fell in love with her." Dany spoke to the cold, still air. She pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "If he hadn't though, perhaps we would have never come to this. I would have grown up in the Red Keep with a mad father, the kingdoms would have gone to Rhaegar, your father would be alive." Ghost whined, and Dany looked at him again. "Or maybe things would have come to this either way. One girl fractured the entire peace. Something else might have."

"I would have married Viserys like you said. He might have been kind. Losing everything ruined him, and he went mad, too." Dany paused, moved closer to the she-wolf's likeness, reached out to stroke the feather she held cupped in her palm. Who had left it? Who came to visit this woman aside from the wolf at her feet? "I wonder every day if I've gone mad, and no one will tell me. You said I have not, but I feel mad. I'm talking to a wolf."

Dany ached. Jon was gone, there was only Ghost, but she poured her heart out anyway. "Was it the news of the Night King that drove you mad? Of Viserion? You seemed well enough when I left. What sent you so far from yourself that you ended up here, in the dark?"

She let the silence hang, waiting for a response she knew she couldn't expect.

"The Unsullied and Dothraki will burn now. I brought them here, across the water, and they're going to burn and die. I did that to them. Everyone will die because we tried to bring proof south of the Wall. Because we tried to get a madwoman's help. Because I didn't trust you." Her throat was sore from tears she held back. And then she realized it did not matter if she held them back. There was no one here to see, no one but her and a white wolf. She let the first fall, for Jon, for the child he did not know he'd made within her. He had to come back. He had to. A second and third fell for her people, waiting above to die in flames, and for what? A throne possessed by a madwoman? A world that might fall to darkness?

"People will think I've gone mad. They will be looking for us, and Tyrion will need to tell them that I'm in the crypts, talking to a wolf that may or may not have your thoughts." Dany shuddered against the cold and let silence fall as she looked at the woman. She took another step forward, reached for the stone face, her fingertips hovering above the smooth surface, never touching.

"You look like her." Looking at Lyanna's face made her wonder whether their children would have her own features or Jon's. She hoped their looks would mingle. The blood of Valyria mixed with the blood of the First Men, the Andals; true children of Westeros. She hoped they would grow up knowing their parents, as she had not.

"I need you, Jon. I am strong for them because I have to be. But I'm stronger with you. I don't need to pretend that I'm unworried or fearless when there is everything to fear. I can be afraid and strong with you. I can be the dragon and the woman all at once." The cold was seeping into her now, and Dany was shivering. She had not been so cold on Drogon, but he radiated heat.

"I need you. I don't know if you can hear me. If I'm honest, I hope you cannot, because I have never needed anyone. Only myself," she said in a whisper, sinking to the floor to rest her legs. "I'm the last dragon, I have to be able to survive alone."

Ghost heaved himself up, and Dany froze in terror. He towered over her where she sat, as tall as she had been standing, perhaps taller. She was afraid; she could admit it to the silence. He was a mythic beast, she reminded herself, and she was as close to alone as she could be. He came nearer, and sniffed at her hair, brushing her cheek with his whiskers as he did so, before curling his body around hers, lying so that his head was in her lap. He was large enough that his tail nearly touched his nose though he was curled around her back. Dany sat still, not wanting to break the moment, and Ghost let out a sigh and a whine. He seemed so like a lost dog, that Dany reached and scratched behind his ears, and was rewarded with a contented rumble. His fur was the color of her hair in the torchlight. Silver and gold spun together. He was a beautiful creature. She felt him falling into comfort, thought he might be sleeping when he fell silent again.

Dany held him there for a long time, wondering whether Jon was still warged into this form. She could not tell, nor could she hardly believe it. Sam had seemed so certain, as had Bran, and though her dragons were real enough, she did not think skin-changing possible. Brandon's talent for foresight reminded her of her own family's dragon dreams, but she'd never heard of Targaryen who could ride the mind of a beast.

"You are not the last dragon," Jon said behind her. Dany jumped, disturbing Ghost, who lifted his head to look at his master. He'd proven her wrong then since he had obviously heard her. From her lips, through Ghost's ears.

"Yes, I am," she said, staring up at Lyanna. The girl her brother died for. "The rest died with my brothers. I am it. You know that."

"I knew that," he said, still behind her. Dany just shook her head and changed the subject. It hurt too much to think of her family.

"You left me."

"Yes, my queen. But you found me."

"Here, in front of your aunt's bones, disguised as a wolf," she said, almost bitter. She was happy he was back, but it felt like betrayal that he had left at all.

"Not my aunt." He stepped into the torchlight, his eyes locked on the statue. He raised a hand to stroke the stone cheek as Dany has been unable to make herself. She saw the set of his shoulders; he was hurting, partly curled around his chest, but she had seen no new wound when he had been lying still on his bed.

"But your father was a Stark," she said. "She was his sister."

"My father was not a Stark," he said, so quiet she could barely hear him.

"Jon, what do you mean?"

"Did you ever hear how she died? Lyanna?" He still had not looked at her. Dany grew confused at the change of subject, but put it down to him being recently joined with a wolf. He was bound to act strangely.

"No. I never thought to ask. How did she die?"

"Giving birth to Rhaegar's son after the Trident."

"A son?" Dany's world swirled for the second time in too short a span. "Did he survive?"

"Yes. Lyanna's brother—Eddard—found her before she died and promised to take the baby for her."

"Where is he? Is he still alive?" Dany was thinking only of the baby, though he would not be a baby anymore. He was her nephew, and a man grown by now, just her age.

"Yes," Jon said, his voice raspy. "He's alive."

"Where is he? Jon?"

"Here."

"At Winterfell? Take me to him."

"Dany." Jon looked at her then, his eyes wrought with pain. She watched his face, and tried to understand why he was delaying her from her family.  _I am not the last._  She stopped, and searched his face again, her heart in her throat. Her eyes jumped to Lyanna's face and back. They looked so alike.

 _'My father was not a Stark,'_  he'd said.

 _'Not my aunt,'_  he'd said.

_A son, a man grown by now._

_'Here.'_

"Jon?" she asked, not wanting to think it before he confirmed it.

"She named me Aegon," he whispered, his voice tortured. "She named me with her last words, and made her brother take me and hide me away. What better way to hide a boy than to give him a bastard's name?"

Dany shook her head in disbelief. "No. How…" she said, though she knew it made sense, even if she didn't know how he'd learned it. Rhaegar had loved Lyanna, kept her to himself for nearly a year. Of course, she could have had a baby then, while Rhaegar fought the war. "Why would he hide you? You were the rightful heir."  _Are the rightful heir._

Jon shook his head. "He had won the war for Robert, and Robert would have killed me. Like he killed Rhaegar, like he killed Elia and her children."

"Like he tried to kill me," she whispered. Jon—Aegon—just nodded, staring at her with a broken look.

"What does this mean?" she asked. "You're—you're my nephew. You're the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms."

"No. No. I don't want them. I've never wanted them." Some part of Dany rebuilt itself. She hadn't even known that part of her had cracked. The look in Jon's—Aegon's—eyes was enough to tear the rest of her asunder. Why was he so sad again? She'd seen him happy and now she could not see him otherwise.

"J—Aegon—"

"No… please. I'm not him. I've never been him. I'm just Jon."

"Jon," she agreed. "You are still you. Your parents do not make you who you are. I am an example of that, if anyone is."

"My entire life has been a lie, Dany, all of it. Before it even started—all lies. Rickard and Brandon died thinking Lyanna had been kidnapped and raped by your brother—"

"No, he loved her—"

"I know that. I know. Now." Jon looked back to his mother's statue. "It was what we were all taught. Lyanna, taken by force, the spark of Robert's Rebellion, Rickard and Brandon's death the kindling, your father calling for my fath—my uncle's head the final fuel. And it was all a lie." He looked down to Lyanna's outstretched palm, lifted a hand to trace over the delicate curve of her fingers. "They married, you know, beneath a weirwood."

"How…"

"Bran, he saw them."

"Like he saw…" She had to pause, swallow the lump in her throat. "Viserion, and Eastwatch?"

"Yes. I don't expect you to believe—"

"I do. I believe you. If you believe it, I will," she said. He nodded, still looking at his mother.  _Gods, his mother._  It was all he'd ever wished for, and he looked so hurt, so broken.

"All lies," he murmured.

"Not all," she said, lifting herself from the floor. He looked towards her, not quite meeting her eyes. Ghost shifted beside her, and Dany slipped a hand into his fur for the warmth, for the support. "It cannot be all lies. Your uncle, he loved you like a son, that was not a lie."

"He made the lies I lived. He let me think I was a bastard, let me wonder who I was, where I came from. He let me join the Watch, give up all claim to a name, a family, a future, to protect his lies."

"Jon…"

"No, Dany, I cannot forgive that. He let me live that way."

"Yes, he did," she said, and stepped toward him. "He lied, yes. But you know as well as I do that he did it for a reason. The Usurper, his dogs, they would have hunted you to the end of the world to make sure you did not survive. You know they would. They did, for me, and they almost succeeded. You have more right to the throne than I; they would have never let you survive, no matter who your mother was. He lied to let you live."

Jon stayed silent for a minute, seeming to inspect her hem. She didn't reach for him, not just yet, knowing he needed to put himself back together as well. "Robert was supposed to have loved her," he finally whispered. "Wouldn't he have wanted to protect her children?"

"Do you think he loved her? Because you know as well as I that he would not have protected you."

"No," Jon said. "If he did, she'd never have run off. Father—Eddard—he mentioned once, when he thought Robb and I could not hear, that she didn't think he'd stay faithful and that she couldn't love a man like that. He said Arya is like her, often. I can see her saying just the same. I think Robert only wanted to have her, not to love her."

Dany let the thought hang a moment. "Rhaegar gave her a crown of winter roses at Harrenhal."

"Yes."

"Like the one she wears, even now?" Dany asked, softly. She moved in by his side, took his hand in both of her own. "Eddard had the statue made, I assume."

"Yes," Jon whispered, looking up at the woman, every inch of him sad.

"That is one truth, then," she said. "Your uncle had her laid to rest as she ought to be; a princess, crowned in her winter roses from the man she loved, here among family that loved her." When Jon said nothing, she continued. "And he raised you with his children, raised you as his son. He taught you things you might have learned in the Red Keep, had things been different. He kept you safe. He kept you alive. I am grateful to him for that."

"I should be," Jon said. "I cannot feel that now. But you are right, he did tell a truth here, with her roses."

"She looks so like you," Dany murmured. "She's so beautiful."

"Like you."

She leaned her cheek against his cloak, said nothing for a long moment. Ghost sighed behind them. "Was it the lies that sent you into Ghost?"

"I'm not sure. I felt like I was losing myself."

"And now?"

"I'm still unsure."

"You are still Jon Snow, you will always be Jon Snow. You are more than your name or your parents," she said. "You are the North. 'Wild and beautiful and terrible and wonderful. Summer snows and wolf howls.' Isn't that what you said? You are the man who rushed the Night King, who took a knife in the heart, who woke again from death. You are still you."

He looked down at her then, but she did not take her eyes off the woman who'd brought him into the world. Her brother's wife and love. Married beneath a weirwood. "I love you, Dany."

"I love you," she said back, as he turned her, wrapped his arms around her waist, rested his forehead against hers. She settled her fingers in the warm fur of his cloak, shivered slightly at the stir of his breath against her cheek. She still felt carefree in his arms, and they had all the cares in the world.

"I will get you a crown of winter roses," he murmured, nudging her nose with his own.

"Would you start a war for me as well?" she said, warming to the affection, when she'd been so angry and scared at the thought of losing him.

"I already have, my queen. You were not so happy with me then."

"Yes, well, we must not make all of our elders' mistakes," she teased back.

"You're right. I will marry you beneath a weirwood," he said. "But I'll be there for our children."

The promise made her shiver in pleasure. To hear him sound so like himself again was all she had needed to forgive him for leaving. Her Jon, a dragon and a wolf all at once. She had love, she had family, and she had more growing inside her.

"Jon?" she said, before he could capture her lips.

"Dany." His lips were hovering, just there, so she felt the brush of them when he said her name.

"Our children… I have news." She trailed her hands down his chest, found his arms, followed them down until she could guide his hands to rest on her stomach. It took a moment for him to react, and when he did, he pulled back, his fingers tightening in the fabric of her skirts.

"You're sure?" he asked, low, his dark eyes searching hers in the dim torchlight.

"I cannot say absolutely," she murmured. "It's not so certain yet. I've… I've missed my moon's blood, which is the first sign, but some children do not stay rooted. I can feel it within my bones, however; the fullness, the heaviness. I know I'll start to get ill in the mornings," she continued, rambling because he had not yet spoken. "And as you're with me for most of them, you'd discover me sooner or later—"

"Dany," Jon whispered, and she shut her mouth forcibly, hoping that he was happy with her news, when he'd had so much go wrong this night. "You're sure?"

"Yes," she said on a sigh of breath she did not know she held. The waiting, the silence was drawing her heart into a tangled web, but she held firm. He had wanted this, in the Dragon's Pit, she reminded herself. He had wanted her, wanted to give her children. He would want this one, even knowing what he knew now, surely.

"You are so beautiful," he finally said. "So wonderful." His grip on her hips tightened then loosened self-consciously, but he pulled her closer, raised a hand to her chin to tilt her head back, to brush his lips over hers, over her cheeks, her forehead. She felt a flutter below her heart whenever he did that, kissed her just to kiss her, seeking nothing in return for the brush of her skin against his. She felt it more now, felt the lump of emotion rising in her throat.

"Our children will grow up knowing us," he murmured. "They'll have a family."

She nodded when she could not find the words, let him cradle her face between the tips of his fingers, his fingers delicate against her jawline. His kisses were featherlight, hesitant, but she didn't mind the gentleness when they must both feel so raw.

"I need you, too," he said after a long moment of just their breaths mingling and Ghost's quiet sighs. She tightened her grip on the fur at his collar, rose onto her toes and let her mouth hover over his.

"Good."

He laughed, one sharp bark before she kissed him, hard, uncaring that they might yet be watched. He pulled her closer, and that felt wonderful, to feel his hands upon her back, to weave her fingers in the hair curling about his collar. When he disentangled them, reminding her that they needed to go back, she only smiled as he set her fingers in the crook of his elbow and lifted the torch aloft. This was where she belonged, she knew. A dragon with a dragon, no longer a Targaryen alone in the world. This was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I've also posted this story over on FF.net, so if it looks familiar, that's the reasoning. A commenter over there suggested I dual-post, so hopefully, you guys like it too. I love talking to readers, so please feel free to comment excessively.


	9. The War Room

They walked together through the snow, the night’s voice dulled to a whisper by the falling flakes. Dany clung to his arm, and Jon found he wished he could hold her closer. He felt likely to disappear, to fall back into Ghost’s mind. The giant wolf seemed to hear that thought, heaving a sigh of breath that lifted a few silver strands of Dany’s hair.

“What was it like?” She asked it in a quiet voice, not quite a whisper, as if the snow weighed on her words as well as the world. He wanted to pretend he did not know what she meant, to pretend he was still wholly human, not part animal, not a warg like Varamyr. The wildling had been cruel with his gifts and warped by them as well. Jon could not imagine becoming so twisted, but the fear was there. Would Dany still want to hold him close if he were to run as Ghost more often? Because while the fear was there, so too was the yearning to run free, to feel the wind through fur, to hunt.

“It was half a dream,” he said. “I forgot who I was at first, but my thoughts… they were frantic with what I’d just heard. All I wanted was to run away. I ran leagues, nearly to Torrhen’s Square and back. I smelled horse and leather and iron—and snow, I could smell snow. I ran through the  _khalasar_. ”

“I saw you. Ghost frightened Rhaegal.”

Jon held his tongue for a moment. How would she react to know? He wondered. But he couldn’t keep it from her, not when he needed her, every day, every moment. She had her head turned up to the falling snow, her eyes half-closed in contentment, though her hold on him had not slackened. The snowfall melted on her cheeks, shimmering like tears in the torchlight, the same color as her hair in the torchlight.

“No, it was not Ghost… it was—I did. We looked up, and then… I  _was_ Rhaegal.”

Her head snapped round to look at him. “What?”

“I, or Ghost… he heard Drogon roar and wanted to look up to see the sky snakes. That’s what he called them,” Jon mused quietly, then continued. “And then I was in Rhaegal’s thoughts, and he panicked. It wasn’t like with Ghost, where he and I were the same. It was like Rhaegal and I were fighting for space.” Jon paused, saw the confusion and hurt in Dany’s eyes. “He calls you Mother.”

“He calls me… oh.” The hurt faded behind pleasure, but she fell silent just the same, thinking. “What was it like to fly?”

“Terrifying,” he said immediately. That tore a laugh from her, and he smiled. “Then, wonderful. But Rhaegal forced me out when you called to him, and Ghost just kept running back to the crypts.”

“To your mother,” she said, lowering her voice. He nodded. From the dragon named for his father to the stone carved like his mother. It had a dreadful symmetry, and he had to think of other things. It hurt, to think of them, not as much as the knowledge had hurt at first, but there was a hole in him that would take longer to heal than any of his wounds ever had.

“And when my own ears heard you… well, Ghost’s only thought was that he wanted to protect you.”

As if he knew, and perhaps he did, the white wolf moved forward and nudged Dany’s shoulder with his nose, and she let out a breathless laugh. “He scared me in the crypts. He scares me more than Drogon can,” she admitted.

“You’ve not watched him grow,” Jon said. “He was the size of my hands when I found him. I carried him the whole way back from his mother’s side in my jerkin, right against my heart.”  _Your heart,_ he corrected himself when she smiled.

“Drogon was small as well, they all were.”

“And yours still grow,” Jon said.

“So it’s seeming,” she said, then her smile evaporated into a thoughtful frown. “Do you suppose Rhaegal would let you ride him now? Not his mind, but…”

“Maybe,” Jon said, also thinking, but more focused on the heights he’d felt from inside the dragon’s mind. It wasn’t like standing on the Wall, where you needn’t approach the edge in all truth. It had been like falling, falling fast, and his stomach whirled. But the wonder had been there, too, the joy.

“If you are your father’s son… you could be a dragon rider yourself,” she said carefully though there was only Kovarro to hear.

“Would you want that?” He asked it gently. “He’s your child, Dany. I’d not take that from you.”

“You couldn’t take that from me,” she said, her voice solid, firm. “I want you to fly with me. And perhaps…” she rested her hand across her stomach, sending stutters through his heartbeat as he thought of the life growing within her.  _I will be there for our children._  “Perhaps we’ll have a clutch of eggs one day.”

He said nothing at that, only pulled her closer to himself, laying his free hand atop hers where she held him. Jon could feel Kovarro’s gaze on the back of his neck. The bloodrider was protective, to say the least, and though he could understand that, he wished he could show Dany affection, any affection, beyond the common courtesies between lords and ladies. “Dany,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I want to marry you.”

“I know,” she said, with a smile.

“No,” he said, slowing. “I mean tonight. I want to marry you now.”

“Jon, I’ve not told my councilors yet. And your sisters, the wars—“

“We’ll tell them tonight, then, and plan a small ceremony. I want to be able to hold you without Kovarro thinking of new ways to tear my eyes out.”

“He prefers tongues, I believe,” she said, laughing, then falling silent. “Will our people understand us taking time to marry when there are wars to fight?”

“There’s no need to feast a day and night away,” he assured her. “We can perform the ceremony and let that be that until the war is won. We will celebrate two things before we march south to take back your throne.”

She searched his eyes for a long moment. “Tonight?”

“As soon as we have a spare moment,” he said. “I am already yours, Dany, as you are mine, but the world needs to know it so that I can do more than carry your hand upon my arm.”

“I’ll call my council,” she said, her fingers curling tight on his sleeve, her eyes shining.

“And I will tell my sisters when we meet to share stories.”

“Tomorrow?” she asked, her voice thick.

“If you will it,” he said.

“I do.”

“Tomorrow, then,” he answered as a wonderful tightness grew in his chest at the thought.

“My lord—Your Grace.” A voice called to them from ahead, and Jon turned to find one of the hundreds of boys who roamed the castle now that they’d called the banners. He thought this one might have come with Lyanna Mormont, but he couldn’t stop the immediate reaction of reaching for his dagger.

“Yes?” he prompted.

“The Lord Tyrion and Lady Sansa await in the war room,” the boy said. “They bid me tell you when you did return so that you might join them, if it please you.”

“Thank you. You may return to them and inform them that we will be there promptly.” Dany said, and when the boy nodded and left them, asked, “The war room? Did your uncle have need of it often?”

“No,” Jon admitted, though his thoughts lingered on ‘uncle’. “It’s more of a library or study. Our old steward made use of it, but the name is a remnant from when the castle was built, and wars were waged often.”

She nodded, and when they reached the door, turned to look at Ghost. “Will he follow us in? I’ve not seen him inside since I arrived—only in the crypts.”

“If he wishes,” Jon said. “I’ve not forced him to do anything since we went beyond the Wall together. He always comes back when he leaves.”

Her eyes went thoughtful at that, and he watched her study Ghost, her brow wrinkling. “What is it?” he prompted, gentle with words as he wished to be with his hands, to touch her face, to smooth the lines from her skin and promise her all would be well.

“I cannot do the same with Drogon and Rhaegal. I tried, in Meereen, as you know. Nor can I chain them again. They cannot have freedom, and they cannot abide captivity.”

Jon watched the memory of the body, the bones, tear at her. He could see the pain in her eyes, in the stiffness of her spine. “There are other ways to prevent that, my queen, I’m sure. We will find them. Sam loves to find old knowledge in his books. Surely some maester or Targaryen wrote about the ways to tame a dragon.”

She nodded, her brow still tight in thought, but he watched her shake it and smiled as she lifted her hand to Ghost’s neck, her pale fingers disappearing into the winter coat he wore. She seemed to draw strength from his companion, the same as he himself might. It made his heart warm, knowing they had connected. “Come,” she said finally, “our bannermen and women await.”

“Yes, my queen,” he answered.

Ghost, he was surprised to find, did follow them to the War Room, dominating the large space with his presence. The eastern wall was lined with books, tomes on battles that Sam or Tyrion might find interesting, though Jon could not name a single time that Maester Luwin or his father had ever opened one. A massive table, with maps already spread, dominated the center of the room, and a crackling fire warmed the chamber. It was the number of people that overwhelmed, though, and Jon realized all of his bannermen, their masters at arms, and their guardsmen had been called to attend. At first, he thought to protest but then realized this was the opportune time for them to witness their new queen. They would accept her here, when they saw her strength. It seemed to be Sansa’s doing, and when he met his sister’s—cousin’s—gaze, he found confirmation in her blue eyes.

As he thought on that, Dany pulled on what he thought of as her ruler’s mantle, though she kept her hand on his arm. Kovarro tool the door guard as she led them and walked to the head of the table, between Tyrion and Sansa, who stood opposed on either side. Ghost heaved a heavy breath as he settled in front of the hearth, and Tyrion’s eyes grew wide at the sight of him. They’d last seen each other atop the Wall, so long ago.

“My lords, my ladies,” Dany stated, nodding to Sansa, Lyanna Mormont, and Alys Karstark in turn, and then the room in general. She gently released his arm, and though Jon mourned the loss, he knew the reason and stepped back to hover behind her shoulder, as Grey Worm moved from the edge of the room to do the same on her other side. “I apologize for keeping you waiting so long. I did not accept the truth of your Lord Snow changing skins as easily as a person of the North might. He and Ghost proved me wrong.” Jon would have smiled, but he knew she needed her words to stand on their own, so he only nodded solemnly at those who studied him as she continued.

“The gods—old and new—know we have not always fought on the same side. North and south, Lannister and Stark, the rebellion against my family. These divisions can no longer matter. It is man against Other, now, in the only war that matters. We must stand together, or fall. That is all I ask until we destroy the army of the dead. Then we may quarrel again, but not before.”

“I will say this. We are not responsible for the actions of our fathers, just as our hatreds cannot be those of our pasts. I’m told the North remembers, and yet Houses Karstark and Umber stand. I’m asking the same forgiveness for the actions of my father and brother. They are long dead, and their only remnant now is animosity. Let us instead forge a new peace—not a fragile one, but one that will last, and hold our Kingdoms against the Long Night, against the rest of our enemies.”

The silence held as her words rang out, the last notes sending shivers down Jon’s spine. That, he knew, was the queen he’d knelt to, just as it was the woman he’d fallen in love with.

It was young Lady Mormont who broke the silence. “That is well said, Your Grace, but some of our ill will is more recent. Our fathers, brothers, mothers, sons, all died under the command of Lannisters and their kin. I see two Lannisters and plenty of their friends across the table.”

Jon expected to see Dany’s spine stiffen at the rebuke—her pride being a piece of herself that she fought to reign in—but she seemed almost relaxed, and even paused to look around the room slowly, weighing the present houses and their leaders, nodding slowly when she’d seen all of their faces.

“I understand your feelings,” she said at last, “though yours are fresher than mine. I ask you though, if past hurts and wars were allowed to ruin this alliance, who would be here? Half of your Northmen would not be in this room—including your uncle. If we were to count my friends, I would be alone but for my Unsullied and my dragons; most the Dothraki would not have followed me. We cannot afford to treat our alliance as such.”

“I once thought to punish Houses Lannister, Stark and Baratheon alike for the roles they played in removing my family from the throne. Now, my Hand is a Lannister, and both Baratheons and Starks number in my allies and advisors. I have not forgotten, nor should you, but I have learned from that hatred. Look what the past has sown for us—chaos and disorder. Let us sow a better future.”

Jon held his breath, waiting, watching the She-Bear closely for signs of discord. But he saw only amusement. “I am glad to find our King was no fool when he bent to you, Your Grace.”

“Just as I am glad to see you are no fool, Lady Lyanna. Shall we get to business?”

Lyanna nodded, and Dany sat in the high seat at her back, then, very deliberately, turned her eyes on Tyrion.

“Your Grace,” the Imp said with a nod, then looked down to his sheaf of papers. “Winterfell is full to bursting, barely able to hold all of our people. We need some creative solutions for shelters for the Dothraki’s horses, as well as the men in our armies. There is also the matter of protecting the people within the castle from dragon fire. You’ve seen Harrenhal?” Dany nodded, and Tyrion continued. “Food stores are already running lower than necessary, and we’ve no idea how to build siege weapons to fend off the dead.”

On and on, the list went, the expressions in the room more dour by the minute. When Tyrion finished listing the enormity of the task, Dany seemed to chew on it a moment, then, in a rare humor, said, “Well, the Wall was built block by block. We’ll do this the same.”

“If I might, Your Grace,” Sansa said, and though she spoke softly, her voice was strong.

“Speak your mind, Lady Sansa,” Dany said.

“Winterfell is full, but only if we continue to house only one or two people per suite. My own chambers include a bedchamber and a solar, and in these times, I hardly have use for the latter, do I?”

“I’ve yet to see my own,” Dany said, “but I assume the situation is the same.”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“And for others?” Murmurs of assent rounded the chamber, and though some were grudging or hesitant, all nodded.

“As it’s late, I could direct the household in closer sleeping arrangements on the morrow, as well as preparing other disused areas of the castle for quarters,” Sansa said, and Jon wondered at the way her eyes drifted in the direction of the nearest corner, where Brienne stood at the ready, the Hound lounging beside her.

“ _Nya dare,”_ Grey Worm said from behind Dany’s right shoulder, and Jon studied the man over her head. Quiet, yes, but strong, Jon thought. “There are two empty towers that the Unsullied may rebuild to help in this.”

“Lord Snow?” she asked in confirmation.

“Yes, my queen,” he answered, falling into her violet gaze and wishing they could be alone so he could fall further. “The First Keep is rundown and unused, but may be easily reopened, I’d think. The Broken Tower may take more effort.”

“See it done,” she answered calmly, and Jon watched her turn away. “Are there any other thoughts?” She waited, then nodded. Very well. Next problem.”

On and on the plans went, until Jon grew weary. Winter nights were long, true, but he guessed it was nearing four hours since the sun had taken its rest. Dany shifted in the high seat every few moments trying to find comfort on the stone, until she gave up and stood to pace. It was like watching her float over the cobblestones beneath her feet, how she glided from edge to edge of the small hall. The eyes of all the winter lords followed her, and the ladies as well, though the bickering continued. After an argument about throwing fire from the walls came to an end with no resolution, she turned to face the room.

“My lords, my ladies,” she said, “we have only days to find a way to beat back an army of hundreds of thousands of dead men and their masters. And perhaps less time than we realize. The hour grows late, however, and we are no use to each other if we fight amongst ourselves—even with words—nor if we have not the strength or energy to go to battle. I propose we all take rest and reconvene in the light of the morning, when our minds may have solved our problems in our dreams. Beyond that, I would like to discuss a matter with my personal council, though I can promise I will not keep you in the dark long.” Jon felt his heart clench within him. This was the moment, he knew. Their moment. It sent a thrill of nerves and excitement up his spine.

“At once, Your Grace,” Sansa said, rising from her seat to curtsey, and prompting the rest to do the same in a clatter of chairs. “Shall I have the kitchens send more refreshment for you?”

“No, I thank you,” Dany said.

“Perhaps another pitcher of wine, my lady?” Tyrion asked of his once-wife.

“Of course, my lord,” she said, nodding, then looked to Jon. “Time now to tell stories, Jon?”

“Yes,” he said, thinking that he had tales that would not be easy to hear. “I’ll be only a moment.”

“I’ll have some food sent to Father’s—your—solar,” she said, and then curtseyed once more to Dany before following the departing crowd, Brienne and Sandor close behind. Not for the first time since his arrival, Jon wondered how the man had won a place at Sansa’s back, next to the woman who’d pledged her life to Lady Catelyn’s daughters. When he managed to tear his eyes away from the conundrum, he locked his gaze on Dany’s once more. He could see the nerves hidden behind her eyes and tried to smile. He could not promise that the next moments would be easy, he knew, but he could pretend confidence.

“My queen,” he said. “I believe the invitation to share stories extends to you as well. My sisters”— _cousins,_ his thoughts whispered—“wish to know you better.”

“I wish the same, my lord.” Her thoughts seemed legible on her face— _stay, give me more strength—_ but her next words were opposed. “I shall find you all there after I speak with my council.”

“Yes, my queen,” he said, then bowed. He said a silent prayer to the gods for a smooth telling as he whistled to Ghost and left the room. The wolf seemed to hesitate at the door, stopping to look back at Dany and then to Jon. The dragon queen smiled softly.

“I’m safe, Ghost,” she called down the length of the room, as if he would understand. Jon knew he would, and had it confirmed when the wolf twitched his ears and seemed to sigh silently at the idea.

“Come on then,” Jon said, reaching out to pat the wolf’s neck. “You can wait for her in the yard.”

They found Jaime Lannister lounging beside the exit of the tower, seeming not to have a care in the world. Ghost wandered further away and began to pace and sniff around the base of the walls, waiting, Jon knew. He himself would have passed through the yard with no comment for Jaime, had the golden man not spoken first.

“Is she telling them, then?”

“What?” Jon asked,

“Your queen. Is she telling her council she’s fucking Lord Snow?” To calm the rage such a statement caused, Jon flexed his burnt hand and adjusted the glove, trying to think how best to reply. Before he could even begin, the Lannister spoke again. “They’re not idiots—they already know. Why tell them? I think I’ve worked it out, because I have eyes to see it.”

“And what do you imagine you see?” Jon asked, carefully.

“You love her?” Jaime asked in response. When Jon said nothing, the other man nodded. “And she loves you, you think?”

 _I know it,_ Jon wanted to say. But he said nothing. The Lion of Lannister seemed to need to speak, and Jon knew that silence was often the best way to prompt a man.

“Will her love still exist if you do not follow her? I wonder. What would the dragon do to you if you crossed her?”

And there, Jon knew, was the crux of it. “She’s not Cersei.”

Jaime chuckled darkly. “No, you’re right about that, Snow. She’s not Cersei.”

Jon waited a moment. “Did you love her?”

Jaime nodded. “With every breath. Not towards the end, not after—why am I telling you this?”

“You seem to need to,” Jon said, and then looked away, thoughtfully. “Like it or not, we share a common cause, now. It’s good to know your allies. To trust them.”

“Trust?” the man spat. “As if a son of Ned Stark could ever trust a Lannister.”

 _If only you knew,_ Jon thought. He wondered what the Kingslayer would think of Rhaegar’s son. The realm had loved Rhaegar, at least until they thought he stole Lyanna. He fought past the spiral of dark thoughts and only nodded as if the man had a point. “I trust your brother. Why not you as well?” The golden lion had no response, only watched him with narrowed, hunter’s eyes, so Jon sighed. “My father did you an injustice.”

That prompted a derisive laugh “Did he?”

“He was not perfect,” Jon said, “just as you are not, and nor am I. We are all faulted. It is what we do to make up for those faults that matters now. It is what we do to correct our mistakes that should define us. My mistake was letting my name keep me from my family. What are you trying to erase, ser?”

 

Jon did not wait for an answer, only nodded in dismissal, and left the golden man to wait with Ghost beneath the falling snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, sorry for the massive delay. Life finds a way to destroy plans, be it with work projects sucking up free time, or computers dying on you, or just plain exhaustion. This chapter will be the last one for about a month, as I'm starting a new WIP and promised myself I'd focus on it for the month of September. Wish me luck, and be prepared for a slew of chapters after then. I have to write an in-between chapter, and then have the three after that already written. As always, I'll do my best to reply in the comments!


	10. The Fireside

Dany ached. All she wanted was to leave the darkened War Room and find Jon, to curl beside his fire and hear his cousins’ stories, to drink mulled wine, and fall asleep beside him. But duty came first.

“Your Grace,” Missandei whispered to her over the crackling of the fire in Valyrian. “You worry me. What cannot wait until morning?”

“It is nothing to worry over; it's only news I wish to share sooner, my friend,” Dany said back in the same language, showing a mask of calm she did not feel. Missandei seemed to try to read her face for a moment, then let her gaze drift to Grey Worm, who stood calmly at attention behind Dany’s left shoulder.

“You are a good match,” Dany said, loud enough for both of them to hear.

Missandei hesitated, then spoke softly, not ashamed, only discreet. “Khaleesi, we—”

“Are a good match,” Dany said across her. “It's quite evident.”

“Thank you, my queen,” Grey Worm said evenly, though he did not look to them, ever vigilant. Dany studied him with a smile and turned back to her friend, who had turned a subtle but definite shade of red.

The faint smirk fell crashing from Dany’s lips as Grey Worm said, just as calmly, “You and the Lord of Winter are a good match as well.”

It took her a moment to find her tongue. “Yes, I believe we are.”

“He is very handsome, Your Grace,” Missandei offered.

“And kind,” Dany said, though the word felt small for Jon. It was more than kindness. He was… everything. “Is he handsome enough to marry, my friend?”

Missandei’s eyes latched on to Dany’s, lit, sparkled. “Do you think so, Your Grace?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Then I would be in agreement. Is this the news you bring to us?”

Dany nodded, then watched Missandei’s eyes drift again, this time in Ser Jorah’s direction. She knew the path of that thought well, having wandered it dozens of times herself. “It will be a hard telling, I think.” She paused. “But worth it.”

Yes _,_ she thought, it would be difficult to tell these men she’d chosen her future, but then she would have it. She would. If there was anything she wished, it was that.

At last, the servant arrived with Tyrion’s wine and was dismissed. Dany returned to the head of the table but did not sit, instead opting to stand beside the hideously uncomfortable chair. She studied the remnants of her council—an unlikely bunch if there ever was one. _Kos_ sat beside the perfumed and verbose Varys, Tyrion and Jorah sat in a sort of companionable silence, and Kovarro, Missandei, and Grey Worm stood, each a remnant of a long-ago girl.

“You had something to tell us, Your Grace?” Varys prompted when the silence could be felt.

“Yes,” Dany said evenly, then straightened her shoulders. _Let it be quick,_ she admonished herself. The sooner she slogged through the detritus of her next words, the sooner she could be beside Jon, assuring herself that he was still with her. “Lord Snow has offered his hand in marriage,” she said, and then, very deliberately, she turned her gaze so that it touched Jorah’s. “I’ve accepted him.”

There was a beat of silence, a second. Kovarro, brow wrinkled, leaned down to repeat the words for her _kos,_ whose confusion mirrored his own.

“But, Your Grace—“ Varys began.

“There are no reservations, Lord Varys. I am betrothed to Lord Snow. We intend to wed in a small ceremony on the morrow and to host a celebration after we have defeated the dead. Anything else can and will be resolved separately.”

“Did you not think to discuss this with us before you accepted him?” Tyrion asked.

“I am telling you as a courtesy, no more,” Dany said.

“As a queen, you are beholden to your people—“

“As your queen, _you_ are beholden to _me_. I do not do this for my people. I do this for myself, but if you wish me to consider my people, believe me, I have. You are my people. The people under your sister’s rule are my people. The Northmen are my people. Do you truly think uniting Houses Stark and Targaryen will do them harm?”

“ _Khaleesi,_ you do not know him,” Jorah protested, his voice rough.

“That has never stopped my marrying a man before,” Dany said, beginning to lose her tiny handful of patience. “I had only seen my sun and stars once before we wed. We did not have any words in common but one. My second husband came to me through a marriage purely for political gain, and look what I gained—rebellion and chaos. I know Jon Snow better than I knew either of them.”

“Regardless, we still should have been told, Your Grace. We are your council; we could have counseled you,” Tyrion said with some measure of calm.

“And what, pray, would have been your council?” Dany said, trying to match his tone. “How long ago was it that we spoke on Jon Snow?”

Tyrion did not answer at first, only studied her. “Many weeks, Your Grace. A meeting in which you said he was too little for you.”

“I did say that; you are correct. It was a first impression, one I was able to supplement. You did not seem so opposed then.”

“Then, it was not a reality I must dance around in order to keep our military alliance safe.”

“This will not strengthen it? The North will be tied to us through a marriage contract—it’s been done before, and worked well.”

“And how many toes will Jon Snow be stepping on with his marriage? His sisters will have to rule the North in his stead when he is away with you in other parts of the Kingdom. His lords will be upset that he has not married one of their daughters. The wildlings will not want to be ruled by anyone but the man who let them through the Wall.”

Dany sighed internally. She had thought all this but had let herself forget it for the sake of keeping the one thing she’d wanted close. “Let us worry about that when it happens.”

“Do you think your brother said that when he stole Lyanna Stark?” Jorah said, quietly and without meeting her gaze. The Westerosi seemed to hold in a breath, while confusion held reign over the others. Dany had to calm the rage that roiled in her stomach. He did not know the depth of the insult she felt, she knew, and she could let it loose, let it fly, but she did not think it would let her leave any sooner. Not when part of the insult came on Jon’s behalf as well.

“My brother did not make his intentions known to her family, nor honor her obligations to the Baratheon. That is not the case here. Jon is not promised. I am not promised. Neither of us has been spirited away without a word. We may bring this before the entire North on the morrow and express what my brother and Lyanna did not. I will not be compared to Rhaegar. Rhaegar is dead—my family is dead—but I am still here.” She did not intend to tell Jorah that Jon was a dragon, that she had found her family. She would keep that to herself until it could not be kept.

“And when these Northmen do not like the results of the impulse?” Varys asked. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, truly, but you do not know these men.”

“You’re right. Do you know them?” She paused only a moment for him to simper and smile. “Jon Snow knows his men, his ladies. He knows which will be a source of trouble, and which will back him for the rest of his days. He knows how to rule them, but most importantly, he knows how to speak to them. They heed his words. They will this time as well.”

She laid her hands on the table, leaned into it for support for only a moment. “Nothing you say will reverse this decision.”

“And if I ask if it _was_ impulse that had you saying yes?” Tyrion said quietly, and the words burned in Dany’s ears. She remembered another fireside, another council chamber, and a conversation that meandered from Jon to Lannister promises to who would follow in Dany’s place as ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. Gods willing, it would be the child inside her, but she did not share that yet.

“I would tell you that this was necessary as well. Not for strength or power or appearances, but for myself. You can and will accept that.”

“ _Khaleesi,”_ Kovarro said when no more was heard for a beat. She turned her gaze on him, on the _kos_ who would have missed the nuance of the rest of the conversation, perhaps even the meat of it.

“Yes, blood of my blood,” she answered him in Dothraki.

“I do not understand,” he said, gently. “You are marrying—will he be _khal_? He did not earn the _kos_ respect. He cannot lead them.”

“He will not be _khal,_ blood of my blood, only my husband. A prince with a crown.”

Kovarro nodded, some of the confusion dying in his eyes. “He will give you strong sons. He rides well.”

The sentiment was echoed in other forms by some of the horsemen, who respected the absolute power of the _Khaleesi_ who had not burned _._ She smiled. “I will hope so, blood of my blood.”

At last, Missandei spoke. “Your Grace, the wedding, are there plans?”

“Very little, my friend,” Dany said, though she felt the weirwood calling her, knew she’d wear a blue gown to match the winter roses, knew she’d share the old words with Jon in front of gods and men.

“I should like to help those who are planning it,” Missandei said. “It will be difficult, I think, to honor the faiths of all who follow you.”

“I should think so as well, my friend. You would do well at that. If there is nothing else, my lords,” Dany said, “I will leave you. I meant what I said about being useless if we are not rested.”

No one said a word, and Dany nodded. “Excellent. I bid you goodnight.”

She swept towards the doors, Missandei, Grey Worm, and Kovarro following in her wake.

“You handled that well, Your Grace,” Missandei said from where she stepped lightly to keep up.

“Did I?” She could feel the shaking in her stomach again. “I felt ready to bite heads off.”

“Bite heads?” Kovarro repeated, and Dany let out a weak laugh.

“You would say ‘cut tongues out,’ blood of my blood. I was frustrated.” She drew in a deep breath. “Even as queen, as _Khaleesi_ , I do not get to live my own life. I want one thing for myself and I must fight as if I’ve told them we’re going to war.”

“Will we, my queen?” Grey Worm asked. “Will this start another war?”

Dany had to take another breath to stay calm. “Let us pray it does not.” And then she threw open the door to the courtyard, ready to feel the wind kiss her cheeks, wanting to run the whole way to Jon. Ghost lifted his head across the bailey, his red eyes boring into her. He was breathtaking, but she smiled at the wolf. His ears twitched—the smallest of movements—then broke the stare.

“ _Verhrazef,”_ Kovarro said, almost reverently. _Wolf-horse,_ she thought, was a perfect way to think of him. Dany moved toward Ghost, slowly, less unsure knowing Jon had said the wolf wanted to protect her, but cautious enough to know that might not override some instincts. She watched his ears twitch at each crack of snow beneath her boots, then smiled when she saw he watched her from the corner of his eye. She reached out, stroked the side of his neck and wondered whether he could carry someone upon his back. She decided she would not be the one to try it, though she imagined it'd be a deal more comfortable than riding Drogon.

After a moment, she glanced around, wondering which of the doors would take her to Jon. “Which way, Ghost? Where's Jon?” she asked in an undertone, not expecting the wolf to understand.

She jolted when he took a step forward, toward one of the towers, and let go of his fur to watch him walk straight to the door. He'd barely fit through it, she thought, but he seemed intent on it, even turning to study her when she did not follow.

“Your Grace?” Missandei called from behind her when she moved to do as he seemed to bid.

“This way, my friend,” she called back and went to open the door for the wolf. He slunk through, head lowered, and padded to the tower steps confidently, pausing to look back only once. He dominated the small hallway, and though he moved silently, she was very aware of his every movement. _Ancient instinct_ , she thought. _A hunter walks through the walls._

He did not shirk, never even hesitated, and stopped only when he'd reached a heavy, iron-banded door. Dany slid past his shoulder, raised her hand, and froze, just for a moment. Nerves were not often her companion, but on the other side of the door, Jon’s family sat, telling stories and perhaps arguing over his plans to marry her.

“ _Nya dare,_ where has the beast led us?” Grey Worm asked quietly.

“To Jon,” she said, and there was a small shake in her voice.

“And yet you hesitate,” the man said.

Dany looked over her shoulder at him, at Missandei and Kovarro behind him. “What if they do not approve?”

Grey Worm said nothing, staring into her soul, it seemed, for a long moment. “That has never stopped you before.”

“It's never been so important,” she said softly. He nodded, then stepped up to her side, and raised his own knuckles to knock for her. She would have been indignant, had she not needed that small push. She lowered her own hand just as Jon opened the door.

She was struck by the seriousness of his gaze, his silence. Was this what she'd looked like when he'd come to check on her, when they had fallen together? She wanted to reach for him but wasn't sure if he had yet told his family, and so only smiled. “Ghost led me here.”

The smile started in his eyes, spreading across his face. He saw only her, she knew, in that first moment. When his gaze widened to her attendants, the smile didn't dim, only grew quizzical.

“We’ll leave you,” Missandei said, “if you'll send someone to direct us to our rooms.”

“No,” Jon said, and Dany blinked in surprise. “No, you should come in. You're Dany’s family, after all. Aren't you?”

He said it with a smile and Dany’s heart swelled. He knew. He knew her so well, her life so well, and after such a short time. She wished to reach up, to stroke his cheek and tell him how much it meant but restrained herself as he stepped back to open the door fully and to reveal the small party sitting around the hearth.

“Welcome, Your Grace,” Sansa Stark said from where she stood, her face a mask. This girl—this woman—was so unreadable, so distant, and with good reason. She had been subjected to so much betrayal and fear, it was no wonder she held her distance. For Arya Stark, it was nearly the same, though that distance was masked behind a smirk and twinkling eyes. Brandon… he was just gone. No distance, Dany thought, just empty space.

She entered the room hesitantly, her misfit family entering behind her, and Ghost behind them. The solar felt intimate, close, with so many people in it, not to mention the direwolf who moved to lay stretched behind the desk littered with papers. It was Jon who made her feel comfortable again, by taking her hand and bring it to his lips, brushing his lips over her knuckles.

“Lady Sansa,” she managed in a voice that would have cracked had she allowed it. “Thank you for all you've done so far.”

“There is no need to thank me,” Jon’s cousin said, then smiled. “If we’re to call you ‘sister,’ we must dispense with the formalities.”

“You like it when they call you ‘my lady,’” Arya accused her sister with a smirk that she shared with Jon.

“And you like it when people call you ‘boy,’” the elder retorted. “Won't you join us, Your Grace?”

“If I'm to dispense with the formality, so must you,” Dany said easily, then let Jon lead her to a chair. It was one of few. “I don't believe any of you have formally met my friends.”

“No, we've not had the pleasure,” Sansa said, turning the cool gaze on Missandei and Grey Worm, who stood quietly near the door, close together. Kovarro lingered behind them, a quiet shadow.

“This is Missandei of Naath, my advisor, Grey Worm, the commander of the Unsullied, and Kovarro, blood of my blood,” Dany said, then motioned for the three to come closer.

“And these are my sisters, Sansa and Arya, and our brother Bran,” Jon supplied, though everyone knew the Starks.

“A pleasure, my lord,” Missandei said.

It shouldn’t have been easy, Dany thought, three Starks, her Jon, her friends. It shouldn’t have been so simple to fall into companionable chatter, into stories, jokes. And yet, they all had found a place to settle in front of the fire and had relaxed into banter. Jon held her hand openly, laughed—actually laughed—and held a smile with no sadness hiding behind it. She found herself grinning like a girl in love—and wasn’t she?—and felt free. Truly free, for the first time in ages, in millennia. She owed it to Jon. Her Jon.

Her love.

“Your Grace,” Missandei prompted, and when Dany turned to her, she realized it was not the first time her friend had called upon her. She’d been lost, looking at Jon and falling into hopeful visions of their future.

“My apologies,” Dany said. “What was the question?”

“I believe you’ve answered it,” Sansa said. “We were trying to determine if we ought to retire.”

“Oh,” Dany said, a bit surprised, then looked about to find the candles had burned down considerably. “Oh, yes, of course. I sent everyone else off to rest, didn’t I? I should heed my own advice.”

Dany made to stand, straightening her skirts as she rose. Everyone except Bran rose with her, an automatic gesture.

“Then we shall leave you,” Sansa said. “Arya and I can show everyone off to their rooms.”

“Oh,” Dany said again, the exhaustion she hadn’t felt until just then clouding her thoughts. The single word earned a sly smile from the wolf women.

“We are not so naive, Your Grace.”

“Oh,” Dany said a third time, then shook herself. “No, of course not. Just—“

Jon pressed his lips to her temple and she lost her next words. “We’ll see you all in the morning,” he said.

“Goodnight,” Arya said, then reached to press a kiss to Jon’s cheek. “Don’t forget to let her sleep.”

“Arya,” Sansa chided, only half-joking. The smaller girl rolled her eyes but smiled.

It took time for them all to leave, and Dany could feel sleep trying to creep up and snatch her by the time the door shut behind Kovarro, who only left because the _verhrazef_ was still laying along the wall, seeming to sleep but more than capable of handling any threat that came her way—at least in the bloodrider’s opinion.

“You’re tired,” Jon whispered in her ear as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, resting his cheek against her hair. She didn’t answer, only leaned into him, heaved a heavy breath. She could have slept for a year, she thought. It had been a long whirlwind of a day. ‘Tired’ could not begin to match the size of her fatigue. “Come, my love, come lay down.”

He led her into his bedchamber, letting go of her hand to bank the fire. She sat on the edge of the bed, studied the sparseness of the room. It didn’t hold much of him, she thought, but he’d already told her that. Winterfell did not call him home anymore. It made her sad to think of it, so she turned her gaze to him, watched him move ash to cover the coals. He rose stiffly, and she saw the exhaustion on him as well. “Come, my love,” she said, smiling as she repeated his own words. “Come lay down with me.”

“As my queen commands,” he said, and though she was tired, she laughed and pulled him into her arms. He kissed her, lightly, teasingly, but what should have been a quick kiss deepened, transformed. She could have died happy in that kiss, she knew. His hands trailed up to cup her chin, just the slightest brush of fingertips against her skin, and yet enough to send gooseflesh soaring down her spine. Her fingers tightened on his back on instinct and the fatigue faded. _Mine,_ a sure voice whispered as he shifted to hold her more firmly.

"We should sleep," he murmured, but then his lips were back, and smiling against hers, pulling a long, contented sigh from deep within her. Sleep, necessary though it was, could wait. She needed this more; the touch, the rush, the quiet, the love.

"We should," she said, pulling back to breathe, to smile into his grey eyes, to reach up to undress him, just as she had that first night. Except on this night, he made her laugh when he nuzzled her neck, his beard tickling as his hands paid tribute to the rest of her. She wasn't numb, wasn't past tears; she was full, glowing with joy. It felt like sacrilege to be so happy, so _whole_ , when the world was falling.

"Jon," she murmured as they lay back, tangled but not yet joined.

"Dany," he responded, stroking the hair at her temples, his gray eyes afire, burning her as they always did.

"I feel lucky," she said, running her hands along his sides. She didn't need to say that it was the first she'd ever felt so, she could see it in his eyes that he understood.

"As do I, my silver queen," he said, leaning in close to run the tip of his nose along her jaw, his gentle breaths causing her skin to tingle to life. "My love," he murmured against her lips. "My life."

_My sun and stars,_ her thoughts called, and for the first, Dany knew the full meaning of the phrase—more than an epithet, more than just words. He was the sun by which her path would be lit, by which she would grow and bloom, the stars by which she would navigate the world, to which her soul called. Her sun, her stars, her everything.

And the knowledge burned within her as they took each other, as they gave themselves, as they fell further.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, thank you so much for your patience with me over the last couple of months. I would have updated much sooner but circumstances prevented me from doing so. A depressive episode took me in October and I'm just starting to break out of it now. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and you're still with me :)
> 
> Updates shall continue as long as I can weave the tale.


	11. The Dream

Jon opened the door to his chambers and found Arya flipping a dagger hand to hand, watching the sky through the window he'd left ajar. “You weren't in the council,” he said, then moved to watch the snow fall with her.

“I like to avoid them,” she said with a smile. “Let Sansa play with egos. It's more her game.”

“And yours is?”

“Needlework, or the game of faces,” she said. 

“Have you shown him those faces?” Sansa asked, pushing Bran into the room. 

“What faces?” Jon asked, then took the task of wheeling Bran’s chair to the fire. “I could have brought Bran here,” he said to Sansa. “Was Sam with him?”

“I didn’t see Sam. Lord Clegane carried Bran for me,” Sansa said, turning away, and Jon wondered whether he’d imagined the odd tone over Sandor’s name. “Well?” she asked Arya.

“No; they're in my chambers.”

“What faces?” Jon asked again as he resettled the blanket over Bran’s legs, and wondered what his brother— _cousin_ —saw behind the blankness of his eyes.

“Arya trained with the Faceless Men.”

“And quit, as well,” she said firmly. “But not before I learned how to change faces.”

“Gods,” Jon whispered, shaking his head as he settled in front of the hearth himself. Sansa brought him a cup of mulled wine from the sideboard and he noticed the tray laid out from the kitchens. She'd prepared for their stories, he noted, arranging it as if it were a formal meeting. “Thank you,” he said, covering her hand with his own for a moment.

“Always, Jon,” she said, and then sat as well, straight-backed, her hands folded around her own cup. “That story may be getting ahead of ourselves, though.”

“I thought we might jump a little further ahead,” Jon said. “There are things I need to tell you. That I need to ask of you.”

“What?” Arya came up beside Sansa, a cup in hand as she lowered herself onto the arm of her sister’s chair, her shoulder propped against the back. He wished he could have them painted, just like that, a study in opposites. Sansa, her hair kissed by fire, the picture of poise, grace, and manners, and Arya, dark as their father, a whirlwind come to settle, and yet, still one blood, still sisters. When the wars were won, he’d have it done in miniature, keep it with him always so he could have them near.

“First… Bran told me something today that I need you to hear.” Jon looked at the boy, wondered where his thoughts were. “It was hard for me—it’s still hard.” He paused again, looked at the fire, took a sip.

“Is that—”

“Let him speak, Arya,” Sansa said, not chiding, as she might have done when they were younger, only asking.

“No, no, once I start, it’ll be hard to stop, I think. What is it?”

Arya bit her lip, studied him a moment. “Is that why you fainted? And why you—Ghost…”

“Yes. I think so, yes.”

“What was it like?” Sansa asked, and Jon smiled for a second. They could not be more different, and yet Dany had asked him that same question, with that same intonation, that same wistful note.

“It was…confusing in the first moments. Ghost took over for a while. And he just ran, and ran. The smells, the sounds, there’s nothing like it. I… I wanted to stay within him forever.”

“I understand,” Bran whispered, and Jon looked at him, surprised to see the blue of his eyes relatively clear. If anything, Jon would have thought he saw grief in them. He reached for Bran’s hand, squeezed.

“I bet you would understand better than most, Bran.”

The boy nodded and looked away.

“I have dreams sometimes,” Arya said, in a half-whisper. “Of being a wolf. Running, hunting. I think… I think it’s Nymeria. I remember dreaming of hunting some horsemen through the woods around the Gods’ Eye when Gendry and I were there. I…” She shook her head and looked away. Sansa reached out to hold her hand, just as Jon held their brother’s. Jon blinked at the thought that Gendry and Arya knew each other. Why wouldn’t Gendry have told him? He let it slide for the moment.

“Cersei and Joffrey took that from me as well then,” Sansa said, with a sad smile. When Arya stroked the back of her sister’s hand, Sansa shook herself. “I do dream of Lady, sometimes. But we are never together like that.”

The silence that fell was charged with unspoken wishes and sadness. Sansa took a deep breath and broke it herself. “What was it, Jon, that Bran told you?”

Jon looked at Bran, squeezed the small hand he still held. “I’ll tell them, if you don’t mind, Bran.”

The boy nodded, no expression on his face. It made Jon ache a bit to see the shell he’d become, but even  _this_  was better than the ghost that he became when his eyes went unseeing. He knocked the thought away and sighed.

“It’s going to be a shock; let me tell it all or I’ll not get through it,” he said, taking one last sip of the wine— _not for courage_ , he told himself,  _just for thirst_. “Ned Stark was not my father.” He shook his head when Arya opened her mouth to argue. “I promise you, I’ll explain.” And so he did, ending with only, “So he brought me here, gave me a new name, and hid me from Robert. The rest you know.”

“What did Lyanna name you?” Sansa asked, her hand on Arya’s arm as if holding her back—and perhaps she was. 

“Aegon,” he said, past a lump in his throat.

“A good name,” she said, nodding. “I believe I like ‘Jon’ better.” She held his gaze firmly. “You  _are_ our brother, Jon, no matter who birthed you. You must remain so, regardless of how we may feel.”

“What does that mean?” Arya asked. “You  _are_ our brother, yes—but you’re also a Targaryen. A prince—a  _king_ —and the line of succession goes through you, not Daenerys—”

“And how would the queen like that?” Sansa asked to halt the flow of words. She studied Jon’s face for a moment, then corrected herself. “She knows. How  _does_  she feel?”

“I’ve bent the knee again. I do not want a crown.”

“What  _do_ you want?” Her eyes twinkled with mirth.

“Why would you bend? What do you mean he has to stay our brother?” Arya asked, getting up to pace, the frustration too much. “I don’t understand.”

“Arya, think for a moment. Jon is not Ned Stark’s son. What would that mean to the North?” Sansa took a sip of her wine as Arya paced, chewing her lip.

“He’d not be Lord of Winterfell… so he couldn’t be King in the North, couldn’t bend, couldn’t command loyalty. But as a prince—”

“They’d not follow a Targaryen,” Sansa finished.

“They’d follow  _you_ ,” Arya said.

“Maybe.”

“But—”

“Tell me, Arya, if Jon were not here, what would stop another man like Ramsey from storming the castle and wedding me by force so he could claim the title?” Sansa’s hand shook as she lifted her cup again, sipped. “Jon must remain Lord of Winterfell. He must still be our brother, for the whole of the Kingdoms to stay balanced.”

Arya stared into the fire, nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve changed,” Jon said with a smile. That made Arya smirk, and she turned.

“I wonder if you could ride the dragons,” she said.

“Maybe not changed so much, then,” he corrected, and Sansa laughed—a noise he’d not heard from her in far too long.

“You’re helping Jon dodge my question,” she said to Arya, then turned to Jon.“You don’t want a crown; what  _do_ you want?

“Her.”

“And?”

“We marry on the morrow.”

“Gods—” Arya said. “Tomorrow?”

“This will not be taken well, Jon,” Sansa said.

“No, I didn’t think it would be.” At Arya’s confusion, Jon elaborated. “Consider what happened to Robb, Arya.”

“You’re not promised to some idiot Frey girl.”

“No, but my lords would want me to marry here, to stay here. I’ll be following Dany to King’s Landing.”

“You just got here.”

“I know. I’ll not be leaving tomorrow, you know. And with two dragons, I expect I’ll see you more than if I were still at the Wall.” He held out a hand to her, pulled her to sit on the arm of his own chair. “I cannot explain how it feels Arya, but if she were to be gone…”

“It would break you,” the girl whispered, once again watching the fire. “I know.”

Sansa tilted her head and shook it slightly— _I don’t know who she means—_ when Jon looked to her, asking with his eyes. Jon squeezed Arya’s hand and let  _that_  question simmer at the back of his mind. “Yes,” he said. “Exactly.”

“So, then,” Sansa said, “the only question that remains is how to minimize the damage. How do we tell the bannermen?”

“I’d hoped to soften the news,” Jon said.

“How?”

“By reminding them that there will always be a Stark in Winterfell. If you’ll agree?”

“To be the Stark in Winterfell? You have my vow already. I’ll ask that you not offer my hand to one of them, though.”

“I’ll not,” Jon said. “I’ll never ship you off with another if you’ve not agreed.”

“Good,” she said. “We may also want to frame this as a means of holding the kingdoms closer together. North and south uniting against the rest of the world. We should encourage them to think along those lines for the future as well.”

“Stronger together,” Arya said. “Like father always said.”

“Yes,” Sansa said, mirroring Jon’s words, “exactly.”

The knock at the door punctuated the thoughtful silence. Jon stood and felt his palms go damp. If it was Dany, and her council had objected… He couldn’t think it, and so he opened the door. For one small moment, the look in her eye had his heart hitching, expecting that everything had gone wrong.  _It would break you,_ Arya’s voice murmured in his head, and he thought she had never been more right. 

And then Dany smiled.

  


Jon was standing at the top of the crypt steps again, staring down and down into the deep shadows. It seemed to pulse with something—not light, not heat, but something like a heartbeat. Whatever creature lived down there in his dreams, it called to him.  _Come, to, me,_ it seemed to say with each pulse of the darkness.  _Come, to, me._  He wanted to turn and run, to find Dany inside the castle, but he knew the halls would be empty, as they always were in these dreams.

His foot took the first step of its own volition. 

He didn’t have a torch to light the way, he never did, and so he relied on the feel of the walls beneath his fingertips to tell him when he passed landings.

_One,_ he thought. The pulses seemed to grow stronger with the thought, the call more insistent. Not into the first level, but further down. The darkness had encircled him, and he waited for the moment when he would come back to himself, wake to find Dany in his arms, her hair tangled around her face, her breath tickling his cheeks. 

_Two,_ another level passed and he still did not wake. It was long past the time when he normally would have and the pull was stronger.  _Come, to, me, come, to, me._

_Three,_ and  _four,_ and  _five,_ he passed and still he walked further down. Down and down and down and down.  

_No place for you here,_ the stone kings whispered as he passed their halls. He ignored them. He had been named King in the North; he belonged. He may not be Eddard’s son, but he was Lyanna’s. Rhaegar’s. He was more Ned’s than the dead could know.

He lost track of the levels when the air started to grow warm. Was it ten or twelve? Even more? He couldn’t be sure. He stumbled—the stairs had ended, the ground was flat, the air stifling. The higher levels were cold, too close to the surface to retain the heat. The hot waters of the springs passed close here, and Jon felt he might be melting.

The oldest Kings of Winter watched him—he couldn’t see them, but he could feel their eyes. He knew their swords had turned to dust, their features had been blurred by time. The darkness shielded him from the stairs, but not the heat—it burned.

And yet he walked. On and on, and though he knew this level was partly collapsed, he did not stumble again. On and on, though it felt like his skin was falling away, like his blood was boiling off; he walked further than he thought possible, until he saw a speck of light up ahead, red and pulsing.  _Come to me, come to me, come to me,_ it called, faster and faster. 

He began to run, until his feet left the ground and he flew, at a speed that would have blinded him over the ground, and the light grew, a coal burning among the ashes, growing brighter and brighter, it’s light warming his skin— _scales_ , a long-silent part of him whispered—no longer burning him.  _Come to me come to me come-to-me-come-to-me-cometomecometomeCOMETOME—_

Dany shifted in his arms and Jon’s eyes flew open.  _Just a dream,_ he assured himself.  _Just the same old crypt dream._ It had been a long time since he’d had it; he shoved down the voice that whispered it was not the same, that he always woke when the black swallowed him.

Instead, he turned his thoughts to what was real and kissed Dany’s hair, the silver strands turning golden with the dawn breaking through the window he’d left open. The Others had not descended while they slept, then, and for that, he felt only relief. Time was a gift from the gods, as was the woman still dozing in his hold and the child growing within her. He ran a fingertip along her collarbone, watched her chest rise and fall with the slow breaths of a sleeper, and prayed, begged that they’d have an eternity of time. She was not a gift to take for granted.

He wanted to let her dream, to watch the flutter of her pale eyelashes against her cheeks, to hold her until she woke on her own, but he knew they could not afford the loss of time. Jon ran a finger along the rise of her cheekbone, felt her stir against the brush of his lips on her forehead. Her lavender eyes, heavy with sleep, blinked open, then found him. “Another sunrise,” he murmured, combing her hair back from her face. “Time to claim the day, my queen.”

The smile was tired, but it lit her up, the fire in her blood coming alive as she drew in a deep breath. “Good morning,” she said.

Jon rolled her over onto her back, cradling her face in one hand as the other stroked her smooth skin. “You make every morning good.” He watched the grin bloom and deepen, then kissed it away, wanting to banish his dreams from the night with the dream that he held in his arms.

He left a trail of kisses down the center of her, stopping to nuzzle the spot where their child grew, unnoticeable yet, but there. He ached in his heart for the baby, for her. The kind of ache that warmed him, told him they were both precious. “I love you,” he murmured to the both of them.

She gasped, a noise that always shot him straight through, when he brushed his lips over her breasts, already swollen and tender with the changing of her body. So he was gentle, stroking and soothing instead of taking, taking, taking. She murmured his name, pulled him in, wanting him, now and always. That itself was a miracle.

He laughed when she flipped them both, her grin wicked, her eyes alight in happiness. That they’d found joy when times were anything but joyful was another wonder. She moved like a dancer from across the Narrow Sea against him, held him captive with her eyes, her lips. He didn’t mind the imprisonment, not when his jailor could make him groan and laugh in succession, not when the sound of her breathing made his stomach tighten.

Not when she possessed him, mind, heart, and soul with just the whisper of his name. 

“Mmm,” she sighed against his neck. “Wake me like that at every sunrise.”

“Gladly,” he managed when he’d caught his breath again.

There was a knock at the door, and Jon let out a heaving sigh, let the frustration capture him for only a moment before Dany kissed his cheek and rolled off of him to wrap herself in furs. “Duty first, my prince,” she said with a resigned smile. 

He pulled on some breeches and went into the solar, his toes frozen to the stones. Ghost was sitting upright and alert behind his desk, unconcerned, and yet still Jon went for the dagger on the desk. He’d never leave without it again, no matter the cause. Dany stood in the doorway to the bedchamber, her hair tousled, her cheeks still flushed. He wanted to grab her again, just take. And then the knock came again, and he cursed under his breath.

“Yes?” he asked as he opened the door, and then blinked in surprise to find Missandei without. He stood back and opened the door wider to let her in.

“Good morning, my lord. Your Grace,” Missandei said. Dany smiled as Jon shut the door behind her.

“Is everything well, my friend?” she asked.

“Yes, Your Grace. It is only that we have much to do. I’m sorry if I’ve disturbed your morning.”

“No, my friend, no. What is it that we need to do this morning?”

“Prepare for your wedding, of course,” Missandei said as if it would be perfectly obvious. Jon looked at Dany, who was frowning slightly now, and grinned.

“Duty calls, my queen.” He went to her, kissed her on the forehead. “I’ll leave you to it until we call the bannermen again.”

“The roses—” she said, eyes wide.

“I’ll get them,” he said, kissing her forehead again. “I promised. There is something I must do first.”

“What is it?”

_I’m not sure,_ a voice whispered in the back of his mind. He could feel the pulsing of his dream still within him, calling him.  _Come to me, come to me._ How could he explain that? He couldn’t, he knew, and he did not want to lie to her. “I could not say, my love, just now. As soon as I know, I’ll tell you.” That seemed to worry her, and so he bent to capture her lips. “It is nothing to fear… only a feeling. A dream.”

That cleared the worries, almost immediately. “A dragon dream,” she whispered.

“Maybe,” he said, then felt that root in him, and nodded. “You may be right. I will find you when I know. Enjoy this morning.”

“I will,” she said. He moved past her into the bedchamber to dress more fully while she and Missandei spoke in the next room—in Valyrian if he’d matched the intonation of the words correctly. He strapped on his sword and his cloak, pulled on his boots, and smiled when he heard the musical laughter.

He found the source when he came through the doorway. Ghost was up and sniffing at Dany’s bare legs, seemingly interested in her scent. Jon wondered for a moment if the wolf knew about the baby, and watched as the wolf lifted his gaze to meet his own. He took that as a yes. “Are you staying here, then?”

The wolf’s ears twitched, and he went to the door. 

“Does he understand you?” Missandei asked. 

“Most of the time,” Jon said. “He doesn’t always listen.” That prompted another ear twitch. “We’ll leave you. Do you need me to send anyone?”

“No, my lord, thank you. We will care for it all.”

He left them then with a smile for them both. Only hours left until he met the fur-wrapped beauty under a weirwood.  _Thank the gods._

The castle was a silent thing so early in the morning, though he knew there would be activity at any moment. He needed to steal this time for himself, so didn't delay as he retrieved some torches on his way to the crypts. He was not risking fumbling in the dark when he could help it. He lit the first at the top of the steps and carried the rest. He could find his way to the top as long as he could find the stairs. He was sure Ghost could find the way regardless of the light, but he was taking no chances.  _A dragon dream_ , Dany had called it. It was not as comforting as she’d seemed to find it. 

He took a deep breath, then the first step. This time he did complete his count. Thirteen levels to the base of the stairs, and the partially collapsed lowest level. It was slightly warmer here, at the foot of the stairwell, but he did not burn.

_Yet,_ his mind whispered. He shook that as he set the lit torch in the sconce to his left and lit a second. Ghost paused to sniff at the edge of the small entry to the rubble-strewn cavern. That’s what it was, he knew, a cavern so large it would have dwarfed the Great Hall. His light did little to help with the sensation. He stepped lightly around the larger pieces of stone, looking for a place to set the second torch. He wedged it at last between a few fallen stones, looking about. In his dream he had not had to dodge fallen columns, only walk dead on toward the back of the cavern. He could do that still, with a few detours. 

Why,  _why,_ was he persisting? He could go back up, go to the gardens, cut some winter roses for Dany’s crown. And yet…

He needed to know.

Stepping carefully and pausing to light torches here and there, he slowly made his way deeper into the cavern, turning back to check his progress every so often. Ghost had all but disappeared into the shadows, often darting past in the corner of Jon’s vision, chasing rats, he was sure. That heartened him, at least; if there were any danger, he doubted the wolf would be romping around as though it were a walk in the woods. 

A hundred or so yards from the entrance, Jon had to remove his cloak—he was sweltering. Not melting away, as he had in the dream, but warm enough that he felt he must be getting close. The hot springs ran through the castle walls as well, by some feat of engineering, but it was never this pronounced. He settled for a moment on a large stone piece and took a breath, looking ahead into the darkness. It was still a blank canvas—no pulsing, no call.

Except…

He narrowed his gaze, stared a bit harder. In the shifting light of the torch, he thought he saw it again. A faint glimmer, just…  _there._

He set the torch securely in the pile at his feet, lit the last from it, and took cautious steps forward. The shimmer stayed in front of him, faint though it was. He felt the sweat beading on his forehead as he moved closer. The hot springs did not only run close to the wall, he realized;  there was a pool down here. He thought it may explain the glinting light at first, but no… no, it was a bit offset from the edge of the water, as far as he could tell. The reflection on the water shifted more, the glimmer remained relatively still, as if it were a reflection within the stone—stationary, solid.

He worried he’d gone too far outside the realm of the previous torch, but his curiosity was caught, he could not turn back just yet. He had to push up his sleeves to stay cool as he met the edge of the hot spring’s pool, but pushed on, skirting the edge of the water. He thought he could make out the shape of the source of the gleam. It was a pile of stones at the back of the cavern, some the same stone as the walls, others…

_Not stone,_ he realized. 

“Gods,” he cursed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter for you, and so soon! Pray to the old gods that the flow keeps up. 
> 
> I want to thank everyone for their support, and tell you that it did wonders for me, keeping me positive so soon after coming back to myself. I hope everyone continues to love this story, and that we keep up the discussion in the comments. 
> 
> As the date of the first episode of the last season is rapidly approaching, I just want to tell everyone that I'm going to continue my story my way, as it's surely not going to match D&D's story. Hopefully, we all love what they give us, but I need to complete my-Jon's & my-Dany's storylines, as well as all of their friends'. If I don't, I will always wonder what happened to them.


	12. The Lady's Solar

Sansa counted stitches by the light of the fire in her chambers. Midnight was well gone, but she couldn’t sleep, not again before the sun rose. The nightmare had returned as it always did, the one with the flashing teeth and evil eyes, with Ramsey’s screams that had turned to Robb’s, Rickon’s, her mother’s, and then her own as she’d bolted upright in bed. She did not regret Ramsey’s death, not for a moment, but she regretted the nightmares. So she counted stitches on the cloak Jon had requested before she'd left him with Daenerys, murmuring songs to herself as she worked. It was soothing to be able to lose herself in the pattern she was stitching, in the slow progress of nothing to something. It made her feel as though she were doing the same with herself, stitching in where first Joffrey, then Littlefinger, and finally Ramsey had torn at her threads and seams, pulling until she began to disappear. But she was still there, and the three of them were dead, never to come back. Only in her nightmares.

The knock at the door startled her needle into slipping and drew a drop of blood. She barely registered the twinge of pain, so little compared to the others. “Who is it?” she called, wiping away the droplet with her handkerchief before it could drip onto the green cloak she was using as a lap blanket. It had seen too much blood; it didn’t need hers as well.

“Me,” came the rough reply, and Sansa wondered whether Sandor could hear the jump in her pulse through the door. It was not fear, not truly, that did it. It was a sickly-sweet combination of nerves and aching, a gnawing in the belly that reminded her of eating too many lemon cakes in the gardens of the Red Keep. 

“Come in, my lord,” she said, rising to greet him like a proper lady. He hated that, she knew, hated when she acted a part, though it had often been necessary. He'd told her to act, so he couldn't very well blame her for doing so when she felt vulnerable, as she did with him. 

“What are you doing?” he accused when he’d opened the door, his expression firm and vaguely weary. 

“Stitching a cloak for Jon,” she answered, keeping her voice even, level, ignoring his brusqueness. She remained standing while he inspected her, running his eyes over her morning robe and the simple shift beneath it, the cloak she’d set aside, the one she still held. She’d have flushed once under his inspection; no longer.

When it felt as though his gaze had lingered hard enough and long enough to bruise, he finally spoke. “Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I need to finish this work,” she said and sat. When he didn’t move from the doorway, she sighed internally. He had no qualms about arriving at her door in the dead of night but hesitated when common courtesy would bid him to sit beside her. She met his gaze, daring him. “Will you join me, my lord?”

She did not watch to see what he’d do, only spread the green cloak across her knees and then found where she’d left off in her design on the black one. After a moment she heard him settle in the chair across the hearth as she knew he would. He'd take a challenge, of that she had no question. But she wondered if he still took orders so easily. She counted twenty stitches to herself before he spoke again.

“You lied to me,” he said.

She raised her head slowly and found him watching the flames beyond the fire screen. She’d learned he did well enough with fire when it was contained, when he was guarded against it. It was the fires that were unchained, wild, or open to the room that left him wary, even frightened. “Yes,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep; that’s why I’m awake.”

He grunted, almost scoffing at her. “I bloody knew that. Heard you scream.”

She looked down at her lap, hiding the shame. If he had, who else? They would all think her weak. All she wanted was to be brave like Robb. Strong like Jon. Like Arya, Brienne. Like Daenerys. She could see it in the dragon woman. Why couldn't she possess that as well?

When she had steadied her hand, she managed seven more stitches before she found her voice. “I regret that I disturbed your sleep as well, my lord.”

“Stop that,” he barked, and her needle slipped again as she looked up in surprise, piercing the skin next to her thumbnail and making her pull in a sharp breath through her teeth. She pulled the needle away, wiping it first on the handkerchief, then pushing it through the work so she’d not lose it. She folded the handkerchief around her thumb, trying to stop the blood welling up. It was only a small wound, common really for a novice, and though she hadn't been a beginner in years, she remembered them well. It would have been nothing, but the ones near her nails always bled profusely. 

Sandor’s hands came to cradle hers, not gently, but with an insistence that had her relenting to the grasp. The callouses on his palms scraped against the back of her hands, but she couldn't care about the roughness. It was the first time he’d touched her, actually touched her, since their kiss in the hall. He’d stood by her, accompanied her when he could be spared, but he’d never mentioned, never hinted at that night’s events. Sansa had not blushed under his gaze, but she felt the heat rising up the back of her neck at the brush of his fingers. “It’s nothing,” she assured him. “My septa called them ‘women’s wounds.’”

“Your septa sounds like a bloody idiot,” he said. “You’re bleeding. That’s not nothing.”

“She was. Not always, only occasionally,” Sansa said. Then, thinking of the woman’s calm protection, of the head upon one of Joffrey’s spikes, added. “But she was often kind, and brave in her own way.”

He did not answer her, only silently drew the handkerchief away, then drew the skin taut so he could see the cut. It really was small, but she said nothing to push him off as a bead of blood rose to the surface again. He rewrapped the handkerchief around her thumb, then held it with firm pressure for a dozen heartbeats, never lifting his gaze. When he drew the cloth back again, the bleeding had stopped. He did not drop his grip on her hands, but nor would he meet her eyes. When it seemed the silence would stretch forever, she said, “I’m never so clumsy, but that was the second time I’ve done that tonight.”

“It’s because you haven’t slept in damn near a week,” he said harshly, but when Sansa raised her chin to argue that he’d caused both wounds, he lifted his eyes and raised a hand to brush at the shadows beneath her lashes, quickly, so quickly she wondered if she'd imagined it. 

“I’m quite well,” she said, lying again. She was shaky with lack of sleep most days. He didn’t make a comment, but he pulled back and fell into the other chair again. Sansa had to draw her composure back over several long moments but was gratified when her voice didn’t crack. “Would you like some mulled wine, my lord?”

"Stop that," he said as she stood.

"Beg your pardon, my lord?" she asked with her back to him, pouring a small cup with hands that took an effort to hold steady. She thought it odd that she'd never been so volatile around Littlefinger, who made jabs and remarks that cut, nor around Ramsey, who had so destroyed her she hadn't fought back for long. Only Sandor could make her shake and bite back. Perhaps because he always broke through to her core, ignoring the outer trappings she kept on. Whatever the reason, he said nothing as she turned and brought the drink to him, but when she would have gone to fill her own, he caught her wrist. Could he feel her heart pounding there? 

"Stop hiding behind those empty courtesies."

"I don't know what you mean, my lord," she murmured, knowing exactly what he meant. It kept him at a safe distance, where she would not be moved to fall into his arms. 

"Little bird," he said, gently, as if reminding her that he knew her ways. It was then that she found the courage to meet his gaze. He was studying her, his grey eyes watchful and full of doubt, and if she did not know him better she would have said worry as well. "Why did you scream?"

"A nightmare, that is all," she said. "No need for concern."

He made some noise kin to a sigh and released her. She said nothing more as she poured a second cup and settled again, smoothing the deep green cloak—his cloak—across her lap. She studied the fire, not yet ready to take up a needle again, not yet ready to look at him nor to yearn just a small bit.

"You lied to me," he repeated, after the silence grew strained.

"I told you, it was only a nightmare."

"Not then," he said. "That hardly counts as a lie."

"Then when?" she asked, lifting her chin in defiance.

"You said Snow killed the bastard who hurt you. I've heard different now."

She wanted to look away, wanted to turn from that thought. It hunted her in her dreams, it did not need to hunt her in her restless nights as well. But she held his gaze, tried not to wonder what he must think of her. "He may as well have. Jon won the battle, captured him."

"Aye, he did. But you'd asked your brother not to kill him." She did not answer, only watched his face, looking for signs of disgust, pity. He continued, his voice slow, precise, as if he were talking to a dimwit. "You asked him to keep the bastard alive if he could."

"I did," she said.

"Why?"

“Seeing as you're here, asking me, you know why.” She looked away then, unable to read his face any longer, or not wanting to. “The hounds needed to be put down after the battle. It seemed only fair to give them one last meal.” 

He said nothing, and Sansa watched the shadows the fire made on the wall, wondered if she stared long enough if any pictures would form.

"Does it bother you?" she asked. "What happened?"

"Yes."

She felt something more tear within her, some small piece that had not been damaged before, and pulled those empty courtesies back to act as a shield. "I'm sorry to have disappointed you, my lord."

"Sansa—" he said her name like a curse, bit it off, blew out a breath. "Do you think I'd not understand you killing him, even enjoying it? I understand perfectly. Me, I'd have done worse, but you… You, my little bird, were never meant to kill anyone," he said, surprising her.

She let silence fall again, and he did not object. They sat with only the crackling of the fire between them for a long time. When it began to die, she stood and laid a new log, knowing he'd not be able. When the flames caught and she'd moved the screen back into place, she stared down into the depths and spoke.

"It felt strong, freeing, to end it like that. He'd killed others the same way. It felt like justice for everything he did." She paused to swallow the memory of the screams. They'd been satisfying once, but now they were tainted by nightmares. "Now I wish Jon had just beaten him to death, as he wanted to."

"Why?" he asked when she did not continue.

"I see it again every night when I go to sleep. But instead of that  _ monster _ , it's Robb. Or Rickon, or my mother and father. It's Jeyne, some nights. And then it's always me on the other side of the bars." She shuddered. "That's why you heard me."

"Sansa," he said, but she did not turn.

"You were right all those years ago," she said. "I am weak."

"I was damn stupid to think so," he said over the sound of his chair moving backward as he stood. He made her look at him with a hand on her shoulder. “Even then, I was damn stupid.”

"I cannot sleep, I cannot even face most days without a shadow of my past haunting me. If that is not weakness—"

"And yet you still get up, play the lady.” 

"So I am a fool."

"No," he said. 

"I cannot do this forever; I cannot keep losing sleep, keep letting those things drag at my thoughts. I will go mad, or worse."

"It'll fade," he said, and Sansa wondered why he whispered. 

"It won't fade tonight," she said, almost desperately, loudly. The quieter, gentler he grew, the more agitated she felt. Why, why was he so gentle when she wanted anger? "I just want to sleep, or to wake up from this nightmare where I have nothing happy in my memory."

He only watched her, his hand on her shoulder softening. She closed her eyes, trying to will time to turn back to when Robert Baratheon had ridden through the gates. She'd change her father's mind, make him stay in the North, where it had once been safe. But, no, she knew that girl she'd been would not have believed the horrors. She would have begged to go south, just the same.

"I need to finish my stitching," she whispered hoarsely past the ache in her throat.

"If you think it'll help, little bird," he said, in much the same tone, and he let go of her and returned to his seat as she did. She didn't tell him that she knew it wouldn't help, but that it'd keep her awake, away from the horrors in her head. She let the rhythm of the needle and the sound of his breathing relax her, then found herself humming the Mother's Song. He said nothing, but she could feel his eyes on her bowed head. She kept humming regardless, finding Jonquil's ballad sprang to mind, and then another after that, all the songs he told her were only fantasy. She needed a bit of fantasy just then. When she paused in her humming to bite through the thread to end a section of the embroidery, he spoke.

"Did you make that green one as well?"

"No," she said, "I only did the alterations."

"What alterations does a cloak need?" he said with a hint of derision.

"Well, the color was one. I dyed the cloth. White was too impractical, and this green hid the stains," she answered levelly, despite the pounding in her ears. She paused to thread a new color onto her needle to give the embroidery more depth. "Then I shortened it. It was much too long for me, so I used the excess to make a hood. I did save the needlework. It was too lovely to take out. I added my own here and there, as well."

He stood, the chair scraping against the floor, and knelt in front of her before she had time to react. He took up a swath of the cloak, inspecting the embroidery along the edge. The gold swords and crowns that had made up the edging had been turned green in the dye-bath as well, but she had no doubt he'd recognize them. After all, he'd worn the thing every day, and a man like him noticed details.

He stared at the hound’s head she'd stitched along the edge, just where her fingers brushed, for a long time, holding the fabric loosely in his large hands. Sansa had paused her needle, waiting for him to move, to speak, to act. The waiting was torture.

"You kept it?" he asked. "You wear it?"

She could only nod and think of the way she'd reach for that dog to steady her fingers when she'd been hurting. No one paid it much mind, thinking it her own sigil, but she knew. 

"Why?"

She lowered her gaze from his face to look at his hands clutching the fabric. “I thought it might protect me, as you had. And when it could not, it kept you close."

“Why would you want me close, my little bird?” he asked, his voice quiet, almost dangerous. She lifted her eyes to meet his again and said nothing, only let the full field of her emotions go for one moment, so that he might read them on her face as he must have the night they’d met on the walls. She had been hiding behind courtesy since then, she knew, because she’d been afraid of being a fool again. He made her feel so, but she desperately wanted him to think otherwise. 

“You were always afraid of me,” he said.

“I should not have been.”

“And why not? I was cruel to you, hateful. Hideous,” he said with a sneer of hatred. Not for her, she knew, but for all the words people had called him, including herself once. Hadn’t she thought those same things, so many times?

“No,” she said, taking one of his hands in hers, rubbing her thumb over the scarred knuckles. 

“No, what?”

“You’re none of those things. Not truly.”

“And you know that for certain?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve seen it.” She lifted her hand to his cheek then, ran her fingers over the bumps and divots. The skin was smooth like any scar, though it looked rough. He caught her hand against it, held her still while searching her face.

“You know I’m a monster,” he said.

“No.” She paused. “I’ve met monsters, known them. You’re only a man.”

He made to stand, to back away from her, but Sansa didn’t want to lose the closeness they’d shared. It was time to act the fool, or she'd lose him to that distant place courtesy demanded she leave him. She rose as well, standing before him again, reaching to touch him.

“Sansa—“

“Sandor,” she replied, only partly mocking, ignoring his desperate exasperation. She seemed to catch him off guard, and he hesitated long enough for her to catch his brown tunic in her grasp, lightly but possessively. He stood as still as a statue until she was close enough to rest her cheek upon his chest, her hands upon his waist.

“I cannot let you do this, my little bird.” His voice was nearly a croak, almost tortured. She wondered if anyone else had ever shown him such affection. She didn’t deem it likely, and all because his brother was one of those monsters he feared he'd become. 

“And why not?” She repeated his own words. “As you say yourself, I’m already yours.”

He said nothing, hardly moved. She couldn't push him any further. She knew she’d been pushing at him, this night and the other, trying to tear down his defenses. It was unladylike to be so forward, and she knew he’d doubt her, but she remembered the nights when she’d lain sleepless, wondering what had happened to him, the days she’d sought comfort in a cloak that had long since lost any trace of his scent.

When his arms finally came around her, one at the small of her back, the other around her shoulders, she turned her face into his tunic and breathed him in. It was just as before; earthy scents clung to him, bringing to mind the godswood in the summer. 

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t,” she said, the words muffled against him. He did scoff at that, but he didn't let go. It took him another moment to weave his fingers through her loose hair, for him to tilt her head back. He did look worried, she noticed, so she let a smile through, weak though it was. It didn’t clear the expression from his eyes, but he leaned down to press a hesitant kiss to her forehead. He’d lied to her when he said he had no tenderness, no gentleness. Here it was again, in the dead of night.

When he pulled away, she rose onto her toes, bringing their lips within inches, letting their noses brush slightly, but leaving the last gap for him to cross. She wouldn’t steal another kiss, only invite him to take, her eyes closed in anticipation. She held her breath, waiting, not wanting to move and shatter the moment. She nearly let it go on a sigh after a few seconds, but then she felt the warmth of his lips press to hers, cautious, unpracticed. His arms, his hands were rough, but here he was soft. When she did not pull back, he drew her closer, held her steady against him, pressed deeper into the kiss. When she dared to peek through her lashes, she saw his eyes shut tight, his face a mask of tortured want, and closed her own again to not break the spell. She moved her hands up his back, held tight to the wool there, refusing to let him leave her this time. When he pulled back, one hand tight in her hair, it was only to brush her cheek with his thumb, to breathe. 

She’d dreamt of moments like this, she knew, before the nightmares had swallowed her.

She’d dreamt of what came after kisses like that, too, but the thought made her tremble now. What if it was always like Ramsey? She knew it could not be, or why else would people enjoy it enough for pleasure houses? That knowledge did not stop the fear coursing through her, not of Sandor, but of what could be coming from kisses like the ones they shared. It was such an unnecessary fear, she knew, as it was not logical, but it existed. She'd never forget her first bedding.  _ Never _ . When she could not contain the shudder the memory drew from her, he drew away, watched her face, wary. 

“Finally come to your senses?” he asked.

“What?” The word was breathless as she clung to him, trying to hide the shiver in her stomach by holding herself against the solidness of his body.

“You’re shaking. I’ve scared you.”

“No,” she said, weakly at first, and then stronger. “No, not you.”

He studied her another moment, and then in one swift motion lifted her off her feet and settled in a chair with her nestled against him. She made to protest but he cut her off. “It’s enough for one night.”

So she said nothing, only rested her head on his shoulder and watched the flames dance until her eyes grew heavy, until her nose was filled with his heady scent. She meant only to close them for a moment, but they didn’t open again until he rose with her still cradled in his arms and carried her through the door to her bedchamber. When he'd laid her in her bed, he bent to kiss her forehead again, then brushed the shadows on her cheeks. “Sleep, my little bird.”

She was too tired to remember why she was meant to sleep alone, why she should allow him to leave, why she should hide what she felt. She reached for his arm when he pulled away. “Will you stay? Please?”

He paused, then nodded stiffly, so she shifted, giving him room to stretch out beside her. He lay down, settling slowly, but when he had, she moved in next to him and rested an arm across his waist, just wanting to feel he was there. She didn’t even hear his exasperated sigh as she drifted back to sleep. 

It was not a restful night. 

“Sansa,” he said gently when the first nightmare struck, one with shifting white shadows and her dead friends coming to find her. She jolted awake, tightened her hand in his tunic.

“I'm sorry. Did I scream?”

“No,” he said, “you were not quite there yet.”

She nodded against him and he folded an arm around her back, held her tight. She tried not to fall back to sleep, but the wave of exhaustion had caught up with her and it swept her under again. 

The second time he woke her, he did it with a touch to her cheek and a soft ‘little bird.’ It had been Meryn Trant and Joffrey—his face still purple—safe beyond the bars of the kennels, watching as the dogs had descended upon her. 

“I'm sorry,” she whispered again, her voice still shaky. He only held her and smoothed her hair away from her face. It took her longer to fade that time, but he stayed, his quiet presence so overwhelmingly comforting that she could not believe she'd ever thought him unkind. 

Just at first light, she woke again, this time of her own volition, to find his hand interlaced with hers on his chest and his face as restful as she'd ever seen it. She wondered, if his brother had not shoved his face into a brazier, if he'd be there with her. She didn't think it likely. He may have turned into a monster of his own, if no one had to look past a scar to find him. The world would not have seemed so terrible then, and he'd not have wanted to teach her how horrible it could be. She'd not be there either; she'd not have survived if he hadn't cared enough to save her from Joffrey or to try despite his loyalties. 

She felt the rise and fall of his chest under her head, the slight jumping in his muscles that were the only indication he dreamed. She deemed him far enough into sleep that she could tell him things she wouldn’t dare to say to his face, not so soon, and not when he still scoffed at songs and tales. 

“You were my only friend in that awful place,” she murmured.  _ It would break you,  _ Arya whispered in her memory. “And when you left, I was lost—a ghost. And when I left… well, I was more than alone. I’d dream of you, and wonder what had happened to you. And I’d wish for you to come save me like the songs, even though you’re not a knight. I didn’t want a knight; I wanted you.” Apt, Sansa thought. 

She let her fingers dance lightly over the hollow of his chest, feeling the drumming beneath. “I was in the Eyrie when you tried to bring Arya to Aunt Lyssa. I was there. If you’d only pressed on—“ she cut off that thought. “If you’d been only days earlier, you’d have found me. I’d have left with you then. I wonder where we would have gone—you, me, and Arya.”

She lost herself in imaginings for a few moments, wondering if Jon would have left the Wall, if Daenerys would know about the Walkers. She didn’t let the worries through for long, instead trying to imagine living in the Free Cities, Braavos, wherever Sandor could find work in a sellsword company. She’d have kept a house, taken a new name, written to Jon, mourned their brothers, argued with Arya, lived. Loved. 

“I wonder if we would have been happy then,” she said.

“Go back to sleep,” Sandor rasped, and she jumped in her skin a little. 

“I thought you were dreaming,” she said by way of apology, and to hide her embarrassment. How much had he heard?

“I was. You talk too much,” he said in his version of a grumble. “Sleep.”

“It’s first light,” she said, trying not to feel foolish, exposed. “I never sleep past it.”

He cracked his eyelids, flicked a glance down at her. “Then have mercy on someone who does, and shut it.”

She couldn’t help the smirk; he was still harsh, despite her fool notions. Perhaps he hadn’t heard her at all. She started to rise, meaning to bring her embroidery to the window to use the fresh light, dim though it was. When she sat up, however, he grabbed her wrist. “Where are you going?”

“I was going to let you sleep while I worked on the cloak,” she said, reaching down with her free hand to adjust the morning robe that had become disheveled while they’d slept. His eyes followed her fingers, but he did not move to act on what shone in his gaze. His grip only tightened minutely, then relaxed.

“No,” he said.

“I thought you wanted rest,” she protested.

“I do. But you need it as well. Lay down.”

“Sandor, really—“

“Do you ever stop talking?” he asked, then pulled her down next to him, holding her close to his side. He buried his nose in her hair and, almost too softly for her ears, whispered, “Your sister always wanted to go to Braavos.”

“She did go.” Sansa closed her eyes against the rising emotion, unfathomable in its depth, and turned her face further into him. He had heard and he hadn't thought her childish. The relief, the embarrassment, the yearning, they were all too much and settled in a confused tangle beneath her throat. She managed to speak past it, in a whisper to match his own.  “Her dancing master was Braavosi.”

“Is that who taught her that damned fancy shite with the sword, then?” he asked in a tired, half-there voice. 

She said nothing, only hummed her assent, mindful of how much she did talk.  He did not fall back asleep, however. Instead, he turned towards her, held her close, and ran his hands over her shoulders, her back, her arms, slowly, soothing. Her hands stayed solidly on his chest, not pushing, not pulling, just resting where she could feel the movement of his blood, the draw of his lungs, the heat of him. When he’d seemed to memorize every inch, he just pulled her closer, sighed against her hair. She lifted her face to brush her nose, then her lips, against the soft skin of his neck, just below his jaw. Then, because she wondered, she did the same to his scar. 

The shudder ripped through him and his arms tightened around her. “What do you want with me?” he murmured, as he had that night in the hall.

This time, Sansa found the words to tell him, though he still did not seem to expect an answer. “Just you,” she whispered. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This would have been out sooner, had I not been knocked sideways by a brutal work-week and now a brain-numbing cold. I hope you all enjoy, the next one should be along shortly!


	13. The Forge

Arya stood at the entrance of the forge and watched. Just watched. It had been years since the sound of hammer striking metal didn't feel like being struck herself. Before, it had been nothing, just part of the everyday noises of Winterfell, and later of the Red Keep. And then… then.

Then it had become the sound of home.

Even in the midst of the drudgery at Harrenhal, sitting next to the anvil had made her feel alive. And with the Brotherhood, it had felt like a comfort. Until it had been ripped away from her and every smithy she passed had her searching the faces of the masters and apprentices alike for one face.

She watched Gendry make a few adjustments to the dragonglass sword he worked, and then, much as he had years before with steel, he hefted it to feel the balance of the blade.

“You still need to stand side face,” she said, leaning against the doorframe.

“And you need to remember you're smaller than me,” he answered, glancing up briefly.

“Quicker, too.” She smirked at his dull-eyed stare, so like the ones she remembered.

“What are you doing up so late?” he asked, then, seeming to remember himself, added, “Milady.”

She resisted the urge to snort and roll her eyes and instead moved to lean against his bench. “You mean early.” At his blank expression, she nodded to the eastern sky through the forge door. “It's nearly first light. Have you not slept?”

“No, I guess not.” He said that flatly, looking around him as if looking for something he'd misplaced. “What are you doing up so early, then?”

“I'm normally up by now. This is the hour I woke in Braavos.”

He grunted, then laid the sword next to her on the bench. “Rough work, that. It's all I have time for. Nothing polished about these weapons.”

“Have you no one to help you?”

“Very few,” he said, then picked up a discarded shard of dragonglass, tested the point against the wood of the tabletop. “They're all asleep, I expect.”

“Most people would be.”

He grunted again, then braced his hands against the bench and hung his head. He was the picture of exhaustion. She had the urge to reach out, touch his shoulder. She swallowed it, stayed stoic, silent.

“Did you need me for something, milady?” He asked it as if she were someone he could bat away, someone intruding. It stung, but she only smirked again and swallowed that as well.

“Only for company. I heard you when I was practicing,” she said, trying not to look at him, and sneaking glances out of the corner of her eye. After the initial whirlwind joy of seeing him again, things had felt uncomfortable between them, as if something fundamental had changed. It had been a long time, she knew, but she hadn't thought time could change so much. What had once been an easy friendship was now an uneasy acquaintanceship. She hated it.

“I did not mean to disturb you, milady,” he said on a sigh.

“Gendry,” she chided, unable to prevent it from slipping.

“My lady?”

She bit off the retort, only set her jaw and looked more firmly away, squinting at the lightening sky as if it held some secret. He said nothing either, but Arya could feel the rhythm of his breathing in her own lungs, having unknowingly matched her breaths to his. It was a relaxation technique she'd been taught in Braavos. It did little to relax her now; in fact, it set her more on edge that she could fall so easily into a rhythm with him despite the silent tension.

“Can I see the dagger I've been hearing about?” he asked when it seemed the tension was going to snap. She nodded, silently sulking, but slipped the weapon off her hip and set it between his hands on the worktop. He hardly moved, but she didn't prompt him. Instead, she moved away herself, needing to work off the restless energy coursing through her blood, and finding an outlet in inspecting his tools and the growing pile of completed weapons.

When she circled back to the bench, Gendry was oiling the Valyrian steel, turning it in the light from the forge fire, his eyes lighting up as he watched the bands of metal reveal themselves. “I've only handled Valyrian steel twice. This is one of those.”

“And the other?”

“Jon’s Longclaw.”

“Would you like to see a third?” Arya spun at the words to find Sam, hulking and sheepish in the doorway, with a sheathed great sword in his grasp.

“Is that one there?” Gendry asked, nodding at the sword.

“Yes, I—I thought you might be able to tell me how to care for it.”

“How does someone come by a Valyrian steel sword and not know how to care for it?” Gendry asked, and Arya wondered whether it was the lack of sleep that made him seem snappish.

“I stole it,” Sam said plainly, then grinned. “From my father.” The grin faded.

“What's it called?” she asked, as Gendry held out a hand for the scabbard.

“Heartsbane,” Sam said as the metal rang out. Gendry held the sword in one hand as easily as Sam had cradled it in two. It made her heart do a slow turn to watch him run his eyes over the metal.

“You can see the folds better in this one than in the dagger,” the blacksmith said. “It's been well looked after.”

“Is this the dagger?” Sam asked, nodding at the weapon on the bench. Arya snatched it up and flipped it between her hands, then offered it out to him, delighted by the startled sheen in his gaze. Sam took it gently, and she watched his brow go from quizzical to deeply furrowed again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“What?” Sam asked back, shaking himself out of his inspection. “Oh, it's nothing, it's just…”

“Just what?” Gendry asked, his hand stilling as he ran an oilcloth down the center of Sam’s stolen sword.

“I think I've seen this before, somewhere. I just can't remember…”

“Likely not,” Arya said. “It's only just come to Winterfell again. Littlefinger gave it to Bran. It's the knife that was meant to kill him after he fell.”

“No,” Sam said, “you're probably right.” But his brow remained furrowed until Gendry returned Heartsbane to its sheath.

“It's held its edge, so it won't need sharpening for a time. Mind that you oil it every so often, and clean it if it's dirty,” Gendry said. “Just as you'd care for any sword.”

“I’ve never been good at swordplay,” the large man admitted with a shrug, but he smiled. “Thank you both.”

“Any time, mate,” Gendry said with a nod, and Sam left, his brow furrowing in thought again as he walked out the open door and across the bailey.

Arya lifted herself onto the bench, sitting with her feet dangling, leaning against the support for the overhead rack. Gendry had resumed his exhausted stance, bowed, bent. The urge to soothe returned and Arya had to clench her fists against her thighs to prevent herself from reaching to hold him.

 _And why should I help him?_ she asked herself. _He didn’t want me._

But some part of her still wondered why she hadn’t been good enough, why such a small thing as titles had kept them apart. How could he think that she’d treat him any different, after all of their days on the road, laughing, surviving, despite it all? She still did not know, though she wondered over it every day. And when she’d seen him again, road-weary and scruffy and miraculously alive when he’d held her, whirled her about, she’d known he was her family, no matter what he said. Even if he didn’t want it; even if he could hardly look at her now.

 _Why?_ She wondered over that, too.

The brave part of her damned all the questions and unclenched a fist to lay her palm over the back of one of his scarred hands. He jumped in his own skin but he didn’t pull away from the contact.

“Arya,” he sighed, sounding resigned. “My lady—“

“I’m not a lady,” she barked, as she had countless times on the road. The memory of him laughing as she shoved him over tickled her heart, but just now she was annoyed that he persisted, and she couldn’t swallow that anymore.

“You are, whether you like it or not,” he said to the worktop.

“I don’t care.”

“You should,” he said, finally looking up, temper snapping. “Do you think anything else in this damn world matters?”

“Yes—“

“What, then?”

 _You,_ she almost yelled back, but she clenched her jaw. _Calm as still water._

“See, even you cannot deny it for long,” he said, his words defeated, miserable.

“I can, and will,” she said when her temper was firmly chained. “Forever, if I have to.” He’d stopped meeting her eyes, and the anger growled and snapped, ready to break the hold she kept on it. “You were my best friend, and now you can’t even look at me. Why?”

He lifted his chin slightly, petulant, and looked at her, but his gaze was leagues off as he spoke through tight jaws. “My apologies, my lady.”

“Gendry. Why?”

His free hand slammed into the table, shaking the tools atop it, and sending a jarring sensation crawling up her spine. She didn’t let his violence phase her. She knew worse.

“Because—“ He cut himself off with a huff and pushed himself away, wrenching his fingers out from under hers to pace.

“Why?” she asked again, her voice hoarse with the strain of keeping calm. Gendry lifted both hands to scrub over his face and hair, then dropped them, looking emotionally thrashed, and lifted his eyes to look at her, to see her. She wanted to ask him again, to make him speak, but then she started to see _him_ , the glimmer in his eyes, the tenseness of his shoulders. The grief, the heat.

 _Why?_ her eyes must have screamed.

“Because the last time I looked at you, you were only a girl. You were only Arya.”

“And now?”

“Now, you’re Arya Stark of Winterfell, the She-Wolf, and my lady.”

“I have always been that. You knew that,” she said, and Gendry dropped his gaze, scuffed the earthen floor with his toe, then peered up at her through his lashes, frowning. She frowned right back. “Have I changed so much that we can’t be friends?” She nearly choked on the last word. _Friends._ That’s not what she wanted, not what she needed, but it was what she would take if nothing else. _He hadn't wanted to be my family._

“No,” Gendry muttered, but he didn’t seem happy about it.

“Then what?” she said harshly, near spitting with frustration, no longer caring to be calm as still water. She wanted to shove him—hard. He said nothing, just clenched and unclenched his fists. “What is it?” Gendry just shook his head, slowly at first, and then as if he were shaking a thought loose. “Gendry, please.”

“I—“ He shut his mouth tight. Then, quieter, “I can’t.”

“Why?” She felt like screaming the word; she nearly did. But he came toward her slowly, his blue eyes reminiscent of the Narrow Sea—stormy, deep. She dreamed of those eyes, and now they held her captive as he came forward.

“You want to know why?” he asked quietly when he was mere steps away and still coming on. She couldn’t even nod she was so transfixed. “Because the last time I saw you, you were a twiggy little girl, a child. And now—“ He shook his head again, breaking eye contact and making her blink. He'd come so close his hands were braced on the table on either side of her hips, his body was between her knees, his shaky breaths were warming her cheeks. “And now, _my lady,_ you're not that. You're more than that. And I can't bear it. And gods help you if you ask ‘why’ again.”

Arya shut her lips because she had been about to do just that. He seemed to pulse with heat and strength and light at that moment, and she'd rather not interrupt the wash of those feelings over her.

“I can't bear to look at you, because all it does is remind me that you were born just inside these walls, with a mother and a father and a name, and I've got none of that to give you. Not truly.”

“I don't need any of that.”

His face was so close, but he wasn't meeting her gaze. She felt her own flicking all over his features, trying to memorize the new set in his jaw, the fresh scars, the old, the tales written in the lines about his eyes.

“I didn't ask what you needed. I was telling you I have nothing to give.”

“That's not true,” she whispered.

“What can I give you that you do not already have?”

“You.” She said it aloud this time, though it was barely more than a croaking whisper. He'd flustered her, coming close enough that their noses could brush.

“You were just a little girl,” he said again, bitter. “You should be still.”

She reached out to give into the urge to shove him. That's what she told herself, but the truth was, her fingers tangled in the front of his tunic and held him closer. She pulled at him, holding him there instead of shoving him away. She could push him back, she thought. End the madness, let him avoid her eyes for the rest of their days, as he was doing now with them shut tight against the sight of her. _Or,_ a little voice, her voice, whispered, _you could pull him closer, hold him._

That's all she wanted. To hold him.

“I’m here,” he said, “making your lord brother and the queen their swords and armor, shoeing the horses the knight's ride. I’m here, m’lady, as you wanted.”

“Stop that,” she whispered, feeling the anger and tears in her throat. It had been so long since she’d felt them there; she could usually hide behind another name, another face. Not here, not with Gendry, who knew her before she was No One, who used to share her words. It had been so long since she’d shared words with him or even Jon. _Have I changed so much?_

“Then what do you want? I’m here. You wanted me. For what, my lady of Winterfell?”

“Just for you. You were my best friend. I wanted to be your family.” He said nothing to that, only stood there, squarely between her knees, his hands fisted on the table, his eyes full of heat and sorrow, and her hands on his chest.

“Do you remember the circle of weirwood stumps on High Heart?” she asked. “Thirty-one of them, remember? We counted the first time. And then the smithy at Acorn Hall. You called your father a glutton and a sot. Only you didn’t know he was your father then. And you ruined that stupid dress—“

“The one with the acorns,” he said. “You said you looked like an oak tree.”

“And Lady Smallwood made me take another bath because of you, and gave me a worse dress, that one—“

“Purple,” Gendry said, “I remember.”

“Lilac,” she corrected him, though her heart leaped that he was finishing her sentences again. “But I couldn’t wear it riding, so the next morning she gave me her son’s clothes.”

“You remember the men at the Stoney Sept?” he asked her, the sadness in his eyes as well as his voice. She nodded, remembering Harwin lifting her onto Gendry’s shoulders so she could give a drink to the men in the crow cages, sentenced to die of thirst for the crimes they’d committed. Robb’s men, who’d died not of thirst, but by the mercy of Anguy’s arrows.

They’d gone to the Pearl, then. _You’re not my brother_ , she remembered saying when he used that excuse to send an old man walking when she’d been approached in the brothel’s main room. Even then, she’d known she didn’t want him to be her brother; she’d known what she wanted. His bitter response— _That’s right, I’m too bloody lowborn to be kin to m’lady high—_ had confused her, made her wonder what flea bit him. But that hadn’t stopped him from sleeping beside her, between her and the other men, and so close he might have held her if he’d only reached out. Next to her, instead of next to Bella, who was named for the bells and claimed to be King Robert’s daughter.

A most unladylike guffaw tore through her as she realized what it meant.

“What?” Gendry asked her, thrown off by her change of mood, clearly startled.

“Bella—“ she managed to gasp before the laughter took her by force. “At the Peach. She—she wanted to ring your bell—remember?—and, and—“ The laughs came so hard now, she struggled to breathe. “And she was probably your _sister!_ ”

His eyes were wide in shock, and then a blush crept up his cheeks. “Don’t be stupid—“

“She was, too; I remember thinking she looked like the old king, but then so did you, so I thought she was only fooling—“

“Stop—“

“And you sent me off, all mad, saying maybe you’d call her back and ring her bell—“

“I didn’t—“

“Your _sister_ —“ she gasped.

“Arya, stop,” he said firmly, the heat in his eyes, his cheeks, his voice. She couldn’t stop the chuckles shaking her, but she shut her mouth, smirked at him. “I never—gods—I never ‘rang her bell,’ damn you. But gods be good, I’ll have to go back, find her, make sure she’s still alive,” he said, almost to himself, the thought leaving his expression muddled for a moment before he turned the heat back on her. “I never rang her bell.”

That made her chuckles die, pulled her lips into a frown. “What?”

“Why in seven hells—“ he said, again to himself, shaking his head. “You heard me.”

“Why not?” she asked, and that too put him off balance.

“‘Why not,’ she asks,” he muttered, lifting his hands to scrub his face again in weary frustration. Blacksmith’s hands, like the septa used to call hers, only when she’d told Gendry that, he’d laughed. _Those soft little things?_ And then he’d begged to be one of Beric’s men, begged to join the Brotherhood, to abandon her like all the others. Begged to leave her broken.

 _Why not, she asks,_ he said, and she remembered his blushes, his playful moments—like when he tore Lady Smallwood’s dress trying to tickle her in the forge, his scorn at her semi-friendship with the little lord Edric Dayne who’d been Jon’s milk-brother, his protectiveness of her. He’d never done anything but look at her before the Red Woman had taken him, but she’d only been a little girl then. Only twelve, not a woman by any means, and yet a lady, and he only a baseborn bastard who hadn’t known who his father was.

“Answer me, Gendry,” she said, but not as a command, since it came out soft and wistful. “Why not?”

She knew why _she_ hadn’t rung _anyone’s_ bells, but he didn’t need to know that, not when the thought of being left by him again frightened her. _Fear cuts deeper than swords._ She’d keep that fear, though, since she’d only just got him back. He’d been part of her pack and she was keeping him this time. Syrio would have told her she needed to see with her eyes, hear with her ears. She thought she could, but she needed the truth plain from him.

“Because—gods, you’re stupid,” he said, but before she could call him stupid right back, his blacksmith’s hands were in her hair, his lips were on hers, his stubble was scraping her cheeks raw, and she could feel the heat of a thousand forges in her belly. Her fingers tightened around the loose tunic he wore, his only shirt given the heat of the fires, and she pulled him in, wrapped her legs around his hips and took all he gave and more.

If she fumbled, as inexperienced as she was, she didn't notice. All she could focus on was the heat behind the kiss at first, before Gendry slowed, seeming to savor her. She'd seen enough kisses in her time to know some of what to do, and it seemed he knew some, too. Her breaths and his came heavy, mingling in what little space remained between them.

His chest was unyielding, but gods did it feel amazing when he wrenched her against it, when his teeth nipped at her bottom lip, when his tongue tasted hers. He tasted like sweat, ale, and fire and she wanted more. _More_.

He heard the unspoken wish, somehow, and yielded to it, his hands sliding down her back to cradle her, and she moved her hands to his shoulders to pull him tighter. Her fingers slid under the collar of his tunic, where his skin burned. She wanted to burn with him. She felt him fumble with the hem of her jerkin, wiggled closer to help him loosen it. His hands seared on her skin, and he pulled away, just slightly, his lips only a hair’s breadth from hers, dipping back in, once, twice.

“Stay,” he rasped between touches, “right there.” He let her go and went to close the forge door and lower the bar across it. And then he was back, his hands on her hips, his lips on hers. He lifted her off the bench as if she were only ten pounds. She felt lighter, weightless, as he carried her with long strides to the pallet in the corner, the one he’d taken to using for short fits of sleep since he'd arrived.

He laid her down gently, just watching her face. All she could manage to do was watch him back, studying his eyes in the flickering light of the forge, wanting to reach up to run her fingers over every inch of him. He held himself propped above her on one arm, hand in her hair, his thumb tracing her jawline. The other was ever so slowly pulling at the lacing on the front of her jerkin.

“You'd tell me if this wasn't what you wanted?” he asked.

“You stupid,” she answered, reaching up to lift his tunic so she could trail her fingers over the skin of his waist. He left off on her clothes to pull the shirt entirely over his head. She traced each muscle in wonder, reveling in the trembling she could feel beneath his skin. He lowered himself to capture her lips again, then to kiss the side of her throat, the hollow at the base, wrenching a hitching gasp from her.

When the laces he'd been working were finally loose, he helped her to sit, kneeling over her as he helped her lift the heavy wool jerkin away, and then—hesitating only a moment—the tunic beneath as well.

“Mother’s mercy,” he breathed on the sight of her, and Arya felt suddenly conscious of how bare she was to him; he could see all the scars she'd received from the Waif. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, uncaring that her breasts were visible as well, though bound in her breast-band. It was the scars she wished he couldn't see.

He sat back on his heels a moment, then reached for her hands, tugging them insistently away. When he could see the wounds he dropped her fingers and traced the scars with his thumb, ever so slowly, lingering on the one she'd taken to the belly, pressing his lips together as he studied it. Then he lifted his gaze to hers, his eyes asking.

“Braavos,” she said.

“Was he bigger than you?”

“She was. And quicker, too. But she didn't know how to fight blind.”

Gendry nodded slowly, returning his gaze to the tears in her skin. He laid her back again, still not meeting her eyes, and she quailed a moment, until his lips pressed to the tip of the worst scar and he traced the line of it just the same, all the way to the base.

“I’m glad she didn’t,” he murmured against her skin, and Arya shuddered in relief and joy, then again when he took her lips, pressing tightly up against her. The feel of his skin on hers set her entire body to tingling. His rough hands gripped her like she might fall, and though they were calloused and scarred, they were gentle.

 _More,_ she thought again, and her hands tightened on his back. _More,_ as he lifted her hips against his, as she struggled with the laces of his breeches, as he cursed and let her go to pull off his boots, as he did the same for her, but slower, torturing her. _More,_ and _more,_ and _more_ , her thoughts screamed when their smallclothes littered the rushes, when his stubble scratched at her breasts, at the inside of her leg. He may not have rung Bella’s bells, but he knew how to ring hers, and she gasped his name.

He moved to kiss her again, softly, then leaned his forehead against hers, his eyes wide open, staring into her. She was drowning, she thought, as his knuckles brushed a tear—a joyful tear—from her cheek. She was flying, she thought, when he murmured her name.

“I think,” he whispered, “that I may hurt you.”

“Never,” she breathed, and his eyes twinkled, but he shook his head ever so slowly against hers.

“Not on purpose, stupid, but you might bleed.”

“You’re stupid,” she told him, smiling. “And I’ll tell you if it hurts.”

He kissed her long and hard, desperate, clutching at her hair again before he guided himself into her center, and it did hurt, enough to make her gasp, but not enough to ever stop. He kissed her until she forgot her name, moved with her until she forgot his. But she couldn’t forget his eyes, his ocean eyes that bored into her, nor his hands, nor his scent, nor his taste, not when they became her entire world. But when that world shattered, she forgot it all.

“Arya,” he murmured against her neck, bringing her back to herself. “I thought I'd never see you again.”

“I thought the same,” she said, turning to press her lips to his temple. “But I looked for you.”

He rolled, holding her on top of him, his arms wrapped tight around her waist, their legs tangled. “Where?”

“Every smithy I passed,” she admitted, nuzzling her head under his chin as they adjusted to each other.

“I take it you were never in King’s Landing,” he said, the laugh in his voice, alongside exhaustion.

“No. Almost, but Hot Pie made me turn around.”

“How?”

“He told me Jon was here,” she said, and then, “He's gotten even better at shaping bread.”

“I would kill for one of his pies,” Gendry said, brushing a hand down her back and making her shiver.

“When did you eat last?”

“When was there ham?”

Arya pulled her face away from his chest, glared at him. “Yesterday’s breakfast? You idiot, that was the last thing you ate?”

“Is that when it was? I'm in here all day, I don't always remember to go eat.”

“Well, I'll make you remember,” she said. “Come on, let me up, there will be something for the early risers by now.”

“Can't you just stop moving for once?” he asked, tightening his grip around her, smirking up at her.

“No,” she said, laughing at him. 

“Mm, good thing I'm bigger than you,” he said, grinning now, before reaching to lift her chin, then leaning up to kiss her.

“Not for long if you don’t eat,” she retorted. “And you’ll be as pale as the Others without some sun.”

He sighed in mock-resignation and grinned when she rolled her eyes, but he let her up, and when he’d risen to sit, reached to rub the gooseflesh from her arms. That made her shiver, but not from the chill, and she looked up into his eyes, trying to see again. His smile softened and he pressed his lips to her forehead. _I could be your family,_ her memory whispered.

They dressed in a companionable quiet, pausing every so often to reach for one another, to laugh. It was a deep kiss that had them standing beside the door, lingering. Arya felt as if leaving the warmth of the forge might put their fragile new balance at risk, so she pushed herself closer, up onto her toes, wanting to stay. He yielded to that, holding her against him, but he seemed at peace with their new dynamic. Smiles and touches and keeping her close. How long had he known this was their trajectory? She wondered.

“Am I still your friend?” she asked, and her voice was soft.

“You always were,” he promised. “You always will be.”

She nodded, stepping back so he could remove the bar and open the door. She followed him into the bright morning that bathed the yard in light, wanting to reach for him, but scared to. _Fear cuts deeper than swords._ They were halfway across the snow-covered bailey when he said, “But, if we’re being truthful, you’re not my best friend anymore.”

“What?” her voice snapped as she glared at him, but he only smirked.

“Your brother’s taken that seat, my lady, I’m sorry to say,” he said, and she knew he was kidding, knew he was only trying to provoke, but she wanted her revenge.

“Oh, you stupid,” she said darkly, then ducked and tossed a fistful of snow in his face.

“That was not smart,” he said, wiping the remains from his cheeks, a fierce grin on his lips. “You know this—I’m bigger.”

“Quicker,” she said back, smirking, but then she shrieked as he grabbed her about the waist and dumped her in a snow bank.

“Are you?” he asked, but then she threw more snow and dove out of the way. She managed to dump some snow down the back of his collar and whirled, dancing out of reach as he laughed, scooping up his own fistfuls of powder to toss at her. She dodged the first and the second, but when twirling to avoid the third, she bumped into Jon, who was coming from the direction of the First Keep, a distant look in his eye.

He took one look at the snow falling from her cloak and broke into a smile. “What are you doing, little sister?”

“This,” she said, and threw some snow into his chest, laughing as she ran a few paces. Gendry was bent double, laughing as well, when Jon lobbed a pack of snow at his head.

“Is that how it is then, Snow?” Gendry asked. “Arya, I’ve changed my mind; you can be my best friend again.”

“Oh, can I?” she called, then ran to stuff more snow down his collar. He grabbed her again, hoisting her over his shoulder with ease.

“If you keep doing that, I’m using you as a shield,” he warned, dodging a throw from Jon. He did just as he’d threatened on the next and she shrieked again before he dropped her in the same snow pile. Jon was laughing, too, and ducked as she tossed a snowball at his head. The packed snow broke against the woolen cloak of the person standing behind him.

“Arya!” Sansa’s voice snapped, so like how their mother’s used to. She almost felt sorry for a moment, until she heard the Hound’s gravelly chuckle.

“I’d be careful, my lord,” Sansa said, stoic in response.

“Of a little snow?” he asked. Arya met the twinkle in Sansa’s eye and grinned, gathering snow in deliberate movements. She stood, and raced around the bailey, throwing a cloud of snow over the back of the Hound’s head.

“Run,” she called to Sansa, grabbing her sister by the hand and tugging her along. Sansa actually laughed and raced with her to the sound of the Hound’s curses. It had been far too long since her sister had found any joy, since they’d run together. Before Sansa knew what it was to be a lady, they had explored and played and laughed, all six of the Stark children. It felt like soaring.

“Here,” Gendry called, having ducked behind a practice dummy, and Sansa tugged her that way. Then Jon appeared from behind Gendry and scooped Sansa into a twirl, falling backward with their sister into the snow, drenching them both in the cold as Gendry reached for Arya.

She whirled away again and looked for an escape, breathless, when she saw Daenerys looking down from the bailey wall, a sad smile on her face. It gave Arya pause, long enough for Gendry to catch her and drop snow over her head, and the Hound to catch them both, cursing under his breath about children and bloody snow. The Dragon Queen had never seen snow, she’d said, and had never had the time to be a child.

“Come join us, Your Grace,” she called, before she scrambled away from the Hound. She saw Jon move to the bottom of the stairs and hold out a hand for the queen, saying something soft. The snow-haired queen smiled as Jon handed her a ball of snow, and then, in an instant, she broke it against his chest. The bailey erupted into madness again as Arya leaped on Gendry’s back to throw a snowball at the Hound, who was helping Sansa rise from the pile where Jon had left her.

One of the horselords called from the ramparts and Daenerys responded, then threw a snowball after her words. The dark man seemed startled as the snow exploded at his feet. Arya couldn’t watch anymore, as the Hound was coming for revenge, so she ran, and Gendry, too. As they flew by Jon and Daenerys, Arya blew snow in their faces and laughed at Jon’s threats. By then, the curious eyes of the thousands who’d heard the commotion were on them, smallfolk and highborn alike, watching them make a mess of the yard, and eventually calling warnings, cheering. Lady Mormont dropped snow on them as they ran under her section of the ramparts, smirking at them. Ned Umber hooted until Alys Karstark tossed some in his face.

 _Summer’s children,_ their parents had called them, and Arya smiled at the thought. Some of the true children she’d been training called to her and she waved, then let them catch her, tackle her, and start throwing snow at one another. They were summer children, she thought, as Gendry lifted two at a time and used them as shields, but they’d needed winter’s joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that took me longer than I wanted. I'll blame my full-time job, again, for driving me to exhaustion for the last few weeks. Missed you guys, how are you all?


	14. The Nest

“Come with me,” Jon whispered, taking Dany’s hand in the chaos of the snow fight, when all eyes were on the pile of children that had swarmed over Arya and Gendry. She turned to him, saw the light in his eyes and smiled.

“Where are we going?” she asked as a gust blew some of the loose snow over the back of her neck, sending a shiver coursing down her spine. He tugged her to motion and wove his way through the disturbed drifts, tamping down the snow so that she might walk easier.

“There’s something I must show you, something you’ll want to see,” he promised, squeezing her fingers within her woolen mittens.

“What is it?” She could feel the excitement pouring off of him, felt it sweeping over her like a waterfall, and wondered what could have made him—her melancholy northman—as giddy as a little boy. It made her wonder whether he’d often been like this when he’d been younger, whether their own child would have such a wide range of moods and emotions, and whether she might be able to pull this mood from him more often.

“You’ll see,” he said, and led her through the yard, toward the godswood. She could see the weirwood reaching for the sky, and wondered if that was where he was going to bring her, a thrill in her stomach at the thought, though she knew he’d not marry her without the lords’ knowledge, not with his parents’ sad end fresh in his mind. Instead, he turned to the crypt door, held open to the morning air by a rock lodged in the snow. The thrill in her stomach turned to dread—she did not want to go there again, not so soon—but she stiffened her spine.

“What could be here?” she asked as his momentum carried them down and down, round and round, but the words were lost in the rush of their descent, which went on and on until she lost track of how far they’d gone.

He stopped at the bottom, his features lit in the wash of a torch he must have put there. She put her free hand on his shoulder as he pulled her in, caught her breath for a moment in his loose embrace. “Jon?”

She wondered if he could hear the quiver in her stomach, the dread she felt being so far down. He tightened his fingers around her own again, this time in reassurance, and smiled down at her.

“I’m here,” he said, and that was enough to beat back the tiny prick of worry. “Do you feel the heat?”

She did, enough that her fingers had grown warm within the mittens. She tugged them off, tucked them within her coat.

“Yes,” she said, and felt brave enough to take a step beyond the torchlight, into the space ahead of them. It was cavernous—that much she could tell from the torches extending into the distance—and she used the free space to remove the coat, itself growing too warm to wear. Jon helped her pull it from her arms, folded it, and set it carefully behind them on the second step. She looked around the dark chamber as he gave the same treatment to his own jacket and cloak. She couldn’t see the walls, couldn’t see much but a bit of rubble.

“It’s so warm,” she murmured, and then an idea caught her. “Jon, the smallfolk—“

“Yes,” he said, coming to stand even with her. “I thought the same.”

“They could camp in here; is it safe?”

“It’s been safe so far,” he said, “I’ve not been able to find the source of the collapse; we’d need to get some of your Unsullied engineers in here to inspect the ceiling, the walls. I’ve not found the corners yet, I haven’t had the time. But we wouldn’t need fires for warmth. Less wood to chop, a safe spot for those who cannot fight to hide.”

“How many could stay down here, do you think?” she asked, trying to find the corners with her eyes and unable to penetrate the darkness far enough. “And where is the warmth coming from?”

“Hundreds, at the least,” he answered. “Come, I’ll show you.” He took her by the hand, stopping every once in a while to help her over large rockfalls, and once to lift her completely onto and then over a large boulder. She felt small when he did that, delicate but not weak. It was a lovely feeling, and her heart strained toward him when he’d set her back on her feet. She leaned in, pressed her lips against him, needing to tell him without words what he did to her. He returned her affection, pausing to run his fingers over her hair, her cheekbone. That itself was enough to make her heart soar again. _I’d follow you anywhere_ , she wanted to say, but instead she only took his hand again.

“Is that water?” she asked in disbelief when she first saw the shimmer of the torch on the surface.

“A hot spring, the source of our warmth,” he said.

“Could we drink it?” she wondered.

“I think so.” He walked with her to the edge, scooped some in his hands and took a cautious sip, then nodded. “It’s warm, of course, but it tastes almost like the well-water.”

She knelt herself, took a handful. There was the tang of iron, a bit of sulfur, but it still refreshed her throat. She wanted to strip down and wade in with him, to lounge in the steamy pool and forget the world above for a while. _After_ , she promised herself.

“This is wonderful, Jon,” she said, looking out over the pool, seeking the edges of the cavern.

“There’s more,” he said, his tone a bit off, and she turned to see him again.

“More?” she asked. “How could there be more? This is already more than we could have hoped for.”

“You’ll see,” he said, standing to his full height and offering his hand again.

“Something good, I hope.”

“I think so,” he said, then led her to the last torch. He hesitated, then pointed into the darkness. “Do you see that?”

She followed the arrow of his finger, shook her head. “What?”

He moved behind her, pointed again over her shoulder. “There. It’s faint.”

“I don’t—“ She cut herself off. “What is that?”

“Come, my love, let me show you,” he said near to her ear, then he bent to retrieve the second torch, one he must have left for this very purpose. He said nothing as they walked, and Dany kept her gaze focused on the shimmer ahead, only breaking it to navigate fallen stones. They were still a dozen yards off when she stopped.

“Jon—“ she choked on her words, swallowed hard, took a deep breath. “Jon, I can hear them,” she said.

He nodded, watching her face.

“This is what you came to find this morning. Your dragon dream.”

“Yes,” he said.

“They called you,” she said.

“Yes,” he said again, softer.

“I—I can hear their heartbeats,” she said. _Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump_ , two heartbeats, drumming a slow and steady rhythm, just as she’d heard Drogon’s, Rhaegal’s, Viserion’s. “Can you?”

“Like a pounding in my own chest,” he said, lifting to hold her hand to his heart.

She could see them even from here, two dragon’s eggs in the torchlight, but she couldn’t quite tell their color. Like she was being pulled, she took a step forward, then another and another, until she was close enough to touch. She nearly lifted her hand to do so but stopped. They’d called to Jon, not to her. She couldn’t say that did not hurt her, but she pushed it aside. She was no longer alone, no longer the only Targaryen. Of course they would have called to him, with him so connected to this place.

One of them was red with golden flecks scattered like stars across the surface, the source of the shine she’d seen, the other a grey, as deep as Jon’s eyes, with silver about the scale ridges. “How did they come to be here?”

“Vermax,” Jon said, then softer, “I think.”

“I thought that was a child’s tale,” Dany said, thinking back to the story in the book Jorah had given her at her first wedding. Vermax had been Jacaerys Velaryon’s dragon, and they had visited Winterfell during the Dance of the Dragons to gain Cregan Stark’s support for the black faction. A fool— _Marshmallow? Mushroom? Moonfellow?—_ had claimed that Vermax had laid eggs in the crypts, and that Jacaerys had married Cregan’s half-sister in secret, but no one had believed him.

“As did I,” Jon said, “though I’ll admit we all dreamed of it being true as children. None of us wanted to venture this far into the crypts when we were that young, though. Too many tales from Old Nan to scare us off wandering too far.”

“And here’s our proof that it was not a tale,” Dany said, looking to Jon after a long moment. He was staring hard into the nest, his brow wrinkled, his thoughts thousands of miles away. She smiled to herself, then murmured, “Where have you gone, my love?”

His vision cleared and he looked at her, looked deep, as if he could see through to her core. She felt he could, that only he could see so far into her. He said, “I’ve had that crypt dream since I was at the Wall. Why now? Why did I follow it now?”

She reached for him, stroked the hard line of his jaw with her thumb, searching him as he searched her. She could see his center, his strength, his fear. “You were not ready for what you would find, perhaps.”

“I still do not feel ready.”

She laughed, a breathless, wonderous, baffled sound, even to her ears. “Are we ever ready for destiny? I’ve always felt the gods grab me, yank me into my fate when I am least ready for it. Yours is right in front of you, Jon, waiting. Take it in both hands, and face it.”

He traced his hands up her back, driving a shiver before them, his steel eyes heavy on her own, his face stoic, until he found her shoulders and pulled her against him. She smiled against his questing kiss, knew he was stalling, and enjoying the product of it.

“There,” he murmured against her lips. “I’ve taken my fate in both hands.” She shivered again, this time with the surge of love his words made in her, and held him closer herself. Hadn’t she thought the same in his darkened tent overlooking Moat Cailin?

“Now,” he continued, “let us reach for _our_ fate. Together.”

He turned them both, gently, to face the eggs, but made no move to touch them.

“That one is the color of your eyes,” she said, and took his hand in hers, took a step closer, pulling him with her.

“Is it?” he asked, but then he reached for it with his free hand, his long fingers outstretched to brush the surface. “It’s warm,” he murmured in wonder.

“Why don’t you hold it, Jon?” she nudged, knowing she’d been just the same with her own children. He did, lifting it carefully from the cradle of stones.

“It’s heavier than I thought it would be,” he said, stroking his fingers over the scaled surface, then looking up at her, the wonder shining in his eyes. “Here,” he said, holding it out to her. She took it, cradled it herself, watched him lift the red one with just as much care, turning it in the torchlight to watch the shimmer shift and change.

“There was another part of that treaty, you know,” Jon said suddenly.

“Which one?”

“Cregan and Jacaerys’.”

“Oh?” she asked, smiling, knowing.

“Yes. Cregan gave his support in exchange for the promise of a Targaryen princess for one of his sons. They never got one.”

“Hmm,” Dany murmured, stroking the silver egg where it rested against her as-yet flat womb. She stepped into him, the eggs between them and wondered if she’d do the same with a child in time. “Will a queen do?”

“I think only a queen will do. It is a couple hundred years late. Consider it interest.”

“Your interest rates are much higher than the Iron Bank’s,” she admonished, watching his eyes dance with laughter. “But, if you wish, it’s done. You’ll have your queen, Jon Snow.”

“Good,” he whispered against her lips, and kissed her again with the two extra heartbeats thrumming in their ears.

When she could breathe again, she looked to her charge. “We must protect them; they cannot fall into the Others’ hands. I won’t have it.”

“You’re right,” he said, then looked around. “What better place to keep them than right here, where they’ve been for hundreds of years? Under guard when we have the smallfolk here, I’d think.”

She considered, then nodded. If the demons got so far, all would be lost anyway. “Shall we show the rest of our friends? Our family?”

“I think we should,” Jon said, then resettled the ruby egg in the hollow he’d taken it from, turning to accept the silver one from her to do the same for it. He dusted his hands when he turned back to her, then reached for her. “Come, my Targaryen queen, let’s find our friends before I lose you to more wedding preparations.”

She let him lead her back the way they came, though he stopped once to look back at the eggs, still illuminated by the torch he had retrieved from the base of the rock nest. “We’ll come back,” she said. “We’ll bring them to the light.”

He only nodded, then leaned down to kiss her in an almost absent, casual gesture that had her toes tingling. That it had become so natural, so routine to love each other was its own miracle. There was no fake affection, no need to remember graces, no false passion that would die at the first sign of trouble. They loved, and they loved enough that it had become part of them in only a matter of weeks. It was a whirlwind, a gift, a joy.

She rode that feeling the entire way to the steps, while they talked and laughed about inconsequential things, small things that they would not bother to tell others, not when they could tell one another.

 

Sam laid Heartsbane on the library table and did not notice the goblet he nearly knocked aside. It wouldn’t have mattered; it was empty, had been for days, and he wouldn’t have been able to remember when he’d last had anything to drink, or eat for that matter. All he could think about was that dagger—flipping through the air, at rest in Arya’s tiny hands, turning in his own.

There was a fourth picture forming—a drawing, precise and intricate, and definitely the same dagger. The damn thing was, he couldn’t remember where he’d seen it.

_Think, Sam,_ he chided himself. _Think._

Why was his gut telling him—screaming at him—that it was so important? He couldn’t fathom, not until he found that drawing.

He remembered talking to Gilly about a dagger, maybe at the Citadel. It would have to be in one of the books they’d stolen, if he were right. He wouldn’t feel guilty about the theft, couldn’t. He’d learned too much of use and import from books the fools at the Citadel had hidden away under the flimsy excuse that they were too dangerous, too important for just anyone to read.

“Ridiculous,” Sam muttered to himself.

“What’s ‘ridiculous?’” a voice asked, and Sam jolted.

“Gods, Gilly,” he said, putting a hand to his heart. “Do you have to sneak up on me?”

“I wasn’t sneaking. You haven’t eaten this morning,” she said, setting a tray among the books, though Sam hardly noticed.

“Hmm,” was all he replied, leafing through a likely volume.

“Sam,” Gilly prompted. “You haven’t answered.”

“Hm?” he asked.

“I asked, ‘what’s ridiculous?’”

“Oh, nothing, nothing,” he said absently, reaching for the goblet he’d nearly knocked over, taking a sip of air before he realized it was empty. Sheepish at the misstep, he set the cup down and took the one Gilly held out to him. “Thank you,” he said with a self-deprecating smile.

“Welcome,” she answered, studying him. “What are you looking for?”

“A dagger,” he said, setting the ale down to page through a little further.

“What, in a book?”

“No, no. A _drawing_ of a dagger. Do you remember it? I feel as though I showed it to you.”

“No, I don’t remember. I could help you look.”

“Would you?” he asked, with a spark of hope in his voice. “There was something important about it. I know it.”

Gilly smiled, but Sam missed most of it, absorbed in the hunt again. He accepted the hunk of bread she slipped into his hand before she pulled a book herself and began to search.

“Little Sam misses you,” she said.

“Oh?”

“He cries, and asks for you.”

That made Sam’s head come up. “I’m sorry for that.”

“You could come back to the rooms, see him. You could sleep, remember to eat.”

The guilt was immediate. “If we had time—”

“The Others have nothing to do with it, Sam.”

“They have everything to do with it. Seven days, Gilly, seven days until they could fall upon us. I have to—”

“Anything you can find in these books will be too late. Come see him before it _is_ too late.”

“I—”

“Promise me you’ll come see him. He misses you. I miss you.”

“Gilly…”

“You bury yourself in these books and stop living. We may not be living much longer.”

Sam reaches across the table to still her hand as it turned pages with more anger than care. “I miss you, too.”

“Then don’t forget me. Don’t forget your son,” she said, the heat in her voice tinged with fear. “I don’t want to die missing you.”

“You won’t. You won’t die, you won’t miss me. I won’t let you,” he said gently, lifting her fingers to press a gentle kiss to her knuckles. It still made her blush to have him do it, even after so long. “And you’re right. It’s too late for most things in these books, but that dagger — it’s important, Gilly, I can feel it.”

“Then I’ll help you look,” she said, with a tired smile. Sam watched her for a moment longer before turning back to his own book. For an hour, the only sounds were those of their own breaths and the turning of pages and though they often met eyes across the table for brief moments, they didn’t speak.

Then, “Sam.”

“Did you find it?”

“Maybe. It says, ‘The Val-Valrins—”

“Valyrians?”

“The Valyrians were fam-familiar with drag-dragonglass—‘”

“That sounds promising,” he said, standing, moving around the table to lean over her shoulder, “Ah, yes, you found it! Well done, Gilly.”

“Will you read it to me?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, then skimmed the page to find where she’d started. “Ah, here we go.” He cleared his throat.

“‘The Valyrians were familiar with dragonglass long before they came to Westeros. They called it—’… hmm, I can’t pronounce that,” he murmured. “No matter—‘they called it _something_ , which translates to _frozen fire_ , in Valyrian, and eastern texts tell of how their dragons would thaw the stone until it became molten and malleable.’ That’s it!”

“What’s it?” Gilly asked, and Sam straightened.

“Well, this paragraph here tells us two things—one, dragonglass _can_ melt, like any metal, and two, it takes high heat—dragon fire—to do it. However, I think we can take it one step further.” Sam reached for Heartsbane and held it out in front of both of them as he slid it part way out of it’s sheath. “Do you see these bands of lighter metal and darker metal?”

“Yes,” Gilly said slowly. “Are you saying that there’s dragon glass in there?”

“I think there just might be. It seems logical doesn’t it? White Walkers can be killed by only two things—dragon glass and Valyrian steel. Why those two things in particular? They must share something in common. Then, it says that the Valyrians used dragonglass in their decorations just here in the next paragraph, and they melted it with dragon fire, the way one melts any other metal in a forge. If they’re already melting dragon glass for their buildings, and using their dragons as forges, what else would they use it for?

“Someone must have tried it, someone must have thought it might make a good weapon, if they mixed dragonglass into their swords. Then, the final clue is the name of Valyrian steel itself—only Valyrians could make steel like that. What did only they Valyrians have?”

“Dragons,” Gilly said. “Do you think Daenerys would let us use her dragons that way? To try?”

“I think she will, if we show her this,” Sam said. “It could give us more weapons against the dead.”

“Then let’s do it now,” she said. Sam let her stand, and reattached Heartbane’s scabbard to his sword belt. When she turned to him, he leaned in for a kiss, lingering over it for a long moment.

He _had_ missed her, more than he’d known.

Fighting the urgency he felt to find Daenerys, to ask for her dragons’ help, he pulled Gilly closer for a deeper taste.

And heard the nasal, masculine voice from two stacks down.

“…and he bent the knee knowing what she was,” the voice said, carrying oddly in the echoey chamber. “Dragon-spawn— _pah_ —you can’t expect she won’t burn people. But lord and heir in one flame? A frightening prospect. If I had any respect for Tarly other than as a general, I’d take up arms meself.”

A second voice, too indistinct to catch, interrupted as Sam pulled away from Gilly with a sharp jerk.

“No. There’s no excuse for burning men, I say. Not even if the damn fools had asked for it. Would have thought Randyll had more sense than honor, considering, and his damn son enough healthy fear…”

Sam heard footsteps moving off but he was frozen in place as his mind whorled. _Dragon-spawn, flame, Tarly, burning, Randyll, son._

“Sam?” Gilly’s voice sounded distant as his fingers tightened on her shoulders.

And anything else she said was drowned out by the roaring in his ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How is everyone liking the new season? I've got some capital-O Opinions.  
> Also, some moments where I'm wondering if D&D are some of my readers...
> 
> Quick question from my end of things: would anyone be interested in reading an original fic from me? I've been toying with an idea for a serial. I could either post it here or on a personal website. Let me know!
> 
> Also, keep the comments coming! Sometimes they're the last push I need to do the final edit.


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